In a country where top government officials can influence the admission of unqualified students into secondary schools without being prosecuted by the Anti-Corruption Bureau; where the ruling party dictates the distribution of public funds and positions; where peculiar discounts are offered to peculiar buyers, the fight against poverty is just an attempt in futility.
We will always embrace the sting of poverty as long as we allow corrupt men, disillusioned octogenarians, inconsiderate legislators and fearful murderers to decide the fate of our progress. Freedom will only be enjoyed by those in power if we don’t rise up and change the course of our nation’s progress.
Ask the state president if he is feeling the pangs of the poorest villager in Chididi in Nsanje who cannot have her millet ground because the only mill in the village has run out of diesel. Ask him if at all he is concerned with the soaring prices of basic commodities. Better still, let the president give his opinion on the increase of maize price at ADMARC by 50 percent.
Well, if at all we haven’t reached a point where we can be described as a failed state, then no country has ever had. Even Zimbabwe has the audacity of asking those who think it is a failed state to check with Malawi first. That is how ironic state affairs tend to turn out. The very same country that was on its knees, asking anyone to assist it – including Malawi – is now placing itself above us.
The end of this year is closing nigh but there is no single hope for Malawi, for the poor, for posterity. In fact government officials are not promising any improvement: we should just brace ourselves for more problems. They are problems experienced in Malawi and not Zambia or Mozambique; problems hatched by this administration and not our neighbours or our donors. We are rolling in inequities masterminded by a regime that feels Malawi is a laboratory where political and economic governance can be researched.
That is why the poor will always be there. They will even increase in number. They will be here with us, always there to remind the happy octogenarians that there is someone in the village who can’t afford a packet of salt and hasn’t been able to buy the subsidised fertilizer because it was never there.
We will only reduce poverty if the majority of us decide to side with the poor. After all, that is the class where most of us belong; therefore, we should fight a good war for ourselves and posterity, for our parents and our friends. We should fight for those who can’t rush to the streets because there is none in their location; to those that can’t boo the president because he never visits them.
The pangs of poverty are becoming irresistible. The poor man is dying because there are no drugs at the nearest public hospital and he can’t afford to buy them at the nearest pharmacy. Yet, those top government officials will not hesitate to fly their sons and daughters to South Africa the moment their throats itch.
The poor will always be among us if we let things take the course they have taken. The poor will not see any light at the end of the tunnel if we don’t take to task this insecure and pessimistic regime. The poor will continue being trumped upon by the oldest men we keep where they don’t belong if we don’t care to take a leading role in realigning the way things are moving.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Monday, December 26, 2011
The Triumph Of Art: Our Victory
A message to the artist – the poet, the painter, the essayist, the musician – the artist
The best explanation of why we are supposed to die is because art lives. Art is the immortal component of our affairs which draws realities into a realm of perfectness. Art cannot be repressed; it cannot be oppressed. Art cannot be silenced, because in its silence, it can shout the loudest. Art cannot be arrested; art cannot be censored, because that which is censored has seen the light of the day. Therefore, censoring art is a futile attempt because art flows from the inner conviction of our desire to paint something new in our progress.
Art will stand the test of time. Art will be there even after we are all gone. Art will still stand after all our pillars of resilience have fallen apart, giving in to economic, political and social inequities. Art will be the triumphant giant standing in a desert of intense heat and loneliness. It will be the last song resounding in the retentive memories of posterity. It will not be defeated by the bark of a rabid dog; neither will it bow down to the roar of a hungry lion.
It will be the lonely tree in a forest that has been cleared. It will be the swift river flowing relentlessly in the flaming sun. Art will be the final point of future transitions. It will be there today and in the afterlife. Art will be the final witness of our experiences. It will refuse to be bribed or manipulated; it will not be altered or cancelled. It will be the ultimate carrier of truth to Doomsday.
Kings angry for blood will not benefit from art; they will be rebuked. Art, like that of Frank Chipasula, in Manifesto on Ars Poetica, will spray these tyrannical leaders with terrible verbs of terror. Art will triumph even after its producer is no more. It will be there because it has always been there. Art will sing, art will write, art will paint, art will even be silent.
We need to be always mindful of the fact that we are living in an increasingly resistant and retrogressive society. It is a society where our final redress seems to be found in the courts of law. Yet, this is a society where the instant redress should be emitted from art. Art will not set a day when it has to come out, for it has always been there in our minds. It is already written on our hearts like radiant words curved on a marble.
The artist will always be targeted by those who perceive him to pose some threat. He may be chastised, repressed and even mauled to his death. But his victory is in his art, and that should be the greatest victory of out time: the ability to live beyond your time; the prospect of leaving behind hope for posterity. That is the essence of art. That is why, like sayeth the Holy Bible, our care should not be to have lived long as to have lived enough; artists, like all good men, must die, but the sting of death will end on the mound beneath which their bodies lie. Art will rise and triumph beyond the pain and miseries of our death.
We must produce art. We must not be in constant awe of those that will need to suppress it, for they will never succeed. Just like one of the greatest artists Alexander Pope said, “so vast is art, so narrow human wit,” we should penetrate into the core ideals of art, and explore it better than we have ever done. So vast will be our art, and so narrow will be the discernment of oppressors. That is where our victory will lie.
We are already in the midst of terrible inequities. As artists we are defending our fold from different fronts. That is where the challenge lies. The triumph of art will be our victory, that is why art should never cease to flow from our loins. Poet and critic Phillip Sidney said that a true knight if fuller of bravery in the middle, than in the beginning of danger. We must therefore rise and write more, paint more, sing more, speak more and act more. The negative picture of our surrounding should be the greatest inspiration. From it, a historic inflow of art can be created. Either, we will have to find a way, or we have to create one.
Like Henry Ward Beecher said, every artist – a painter, a poet, a singer – dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures. That is where art wins; that is where art informs us that it never comes from a vacuum. It descends from the experiences of life, the trauma of rejection, the pain of oppression; even the hope for posterity.
The artist shouldn’t be troubled with the predictable perfections of life. He has the artistic license to present the way he wants. Morality should be his guiding principle. It should resurrect the hopefulness that will emanate from our desire to control our progress. Great art will live today, tomorrow, even in the afterlife. That is why the aim of every artist should be to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. I share this concept by William Faulkner.
Let art illuminate the darkest sides of our society. Let it expose the inequities committed in dark rooms planted on mountains and in forests. Its duty to send a searching light into the darkness of men’s hearts should be nurtured. Let the artist’s world remain limitless. It should be from within and without that the artist should explore life. Let him recreate. After all, like Henry Miller once observed, the artist is the opposite of the politically-minded individual, the opposite of the reformer, the opposite of the idealist. The artist does not tinker with the universe; he recreates it out of his own experience and understanding of life.
As an artist – as a poet; as a writer – you will conceive ideas that the teacher will love or hate; things that the politician will like or loathe; things that the doctor will condemn or recommend; things for which the policeman will want to arrest you or applaud you; things that the lawyer will invalidate or substantiate; things that your father will reject or respect. Don’t despair; you are an artist and give every man his proper dosage even if he will despise it. Its significance will be recognized later in this life journey.
Don’t worry of starting your artistic work because you are not sure if you will be able to finish it. No artist in the world ever finishes his work; we will all take it forward with a terrible speed, but life will force us to abandon it. We should be most interested to rediscover the universe; recreate the society; realign the political situation. Struggle not to complicate art. The farmer should discern it; the driver should uncover it; the politician should interpret it. Simplicity is the greatest adornment of art.
Our hearts should not grow weaker. Indeed we are burdened with the imposed inequities of our friends; those friends whom we cannot ignore; friends who are forcing us to love what we hate for to bring our society back to our roots, we have to show love by producing art that will rebuke them. As artists, we have unimaginable loads on our heads. And, yet, that is what should build our character because it is the nature of the strong heart that, like the palm tree it has to grow upwards when it is most burdened.
Well, this message is drawn from nature, the greatest form of art. Nature abhors a vacuum; nature desires that there should be continuity in it, that it draws together all forms of art. Just like Alexander Pope observed, nature itself is but art methodised. Art should retain its original position in government business. It should not conform to the laid down principles of politicians. It must not be in perfect terror of the loudest voices. Let art be like the soldier’s compass; a pilgrim’s staff. Art should be the basis of everything. Thus, we should produce art in abundance, for art summarises all life’s struggles.
Art has never slept, it only rests. Art will never be deleted, it may only be hidden. Art is the ultimate victory of our time, so should the artist be. Our deepest desire should be to produce more and more art. Let’s write poetry, let’s paint images, let’s sing songs, let’s even think aloud. And at the end, art will triumph. Art will reshape our society. Art will be the ultimate winner. And that will be our victory; the triumph of art.
The best explanation of why we are supposed to die is because art lives. Art is the immortal component of our affairs which draws realities into a realm of perfectness. Art cannot be repressed; it cannot be oppressed. Art cannot be silenced, because in its silence, it can shout the loudest. Art cannot be arrested; art cannot be censored, because that which is censored has seen the light of the day. Therefore, censoring art is a futile attempt because art flows from the inner conviction of our desire to paint something new in our progress.
Art will stand the test of time. Art will be there even after we are all gone. Art will still stand after all our pillars of resilience have fallen apart, giving in to economic, political and social inequities. Art will be the triumphant giant standing in a desert of intense heat and loneliness. It will be the last song resounding in the retentive memories of posterity. It will not be defeated by the bark of a rabid dog; neither will it bow down to the roar of a hungry lion.
It will be the lonely tree in a forest that has been cleared. It will be the swift river flowing relentlessly in the flaming sun. Art will be the final point of future transitions. It will be there today and in the afterlife. Art will be the final witness of our experiences. It will refuse to be bribed or manipulated; it will not be altered or cancelled. It will be the ultimate carrier of truth to Doomsday.
Kings angry for blood will not benefit from art; they will be rebuked. Art, like that of Frank Chipasula, in Manifesto on Ars Poetica, will spray these tyrannical leaders with terrible verbs of terror. Art will triumph even after its producer is no more. It will be there because it has always been there. Art will sing, art will write, art will paint, art will even be silent.
We need to be always mindful of the fact that we are living in an increasingly resistant and retrogressive society. It is a society where our final redress seems to be found in the courts of law. Yet, this is a society where the instant redress should be emitted from art. Art will not set a day when it has to come out, for it has always been there in our minds. It is already written on our hearts like radiant words curved on a marble.
The artist will always be targeted by those who perceive him to pose some threat. He may be chastised, repressed and even mauled to his death. But his victory is in his art, and that should be the greatest victory of out time: the ability to live beyond your time; the prospect of leaving behind hope for posterity. That is the essence of art. That is why, like sayeth the Holy Bible, our care should not be to have lived long as to have lived enough; artists, like all good men, must die, but the sting of death will end on the mound beneath which their bodies lie. Art will rise and triumph beyond the pain and miseries of our death.
We must produce art. We must not be in constant awe of those that will need to suppress it, for they will never succeed. Just like one of the greatest artists Alexander Pope said, “so vast is art, so narrow human wit,” we should penetrate into the core ideals of art, and explore it better than we have ever done. So vast will be our art, and so narrow will be the discernment of oppressors. That is where our victory will lie.
We are already in the midst of terrible inequities. As artists we are defending our fold from different fronts. That is where the challenge lies. The triumph of art will be our victory, that is why art should never cease to flow from our loins. Poet and critic Phillip Sidney said that a true knight if fuller of bravery in the middle, than in the beginning of danger. We must therefore rise and write more, paint more, sing more, speak more and act more. The negative picture of our surrounding should be the greatest inspiration. From it, a historic inflow of art can be created. Either, we will have to find a way, or we have to create one.
Like Henry Ward Beecher said, every artist – a painter, a poet, a singer – dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures. That is where art wins; that is where art informs us that it never comes from a vacuum. It descends from the experiences of life, the trauma of rejection, the pain of oppression; even the hope for posterity.
The artist shouldn’t be troubled with the predictable perfections of life. He has the artistic license to present the way he wants. Morality should be his guiding principle. It should resurrect the hopefulness that will emanate from our desire to control our progress. Great art will live today, tomorrow, even in the afterlife. That is why the aim of every artist should be to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. I share this concept by William Faulkner.
Let art illuminate the darkest sides of our society. Let it expose the inequities committed in dark rooms planted on mountains and in forests. Its duty to send a searching light into the darkness of men’s hearts should be nurtured. Let the artist’s world remain limitless. It should be from within and without that the artist should explore life. Let him recreate. After all, like Henry Miller once observed, the artist is the opposite of the politically-minded individual, the opposite of the reformer, the opposite of the idealist. The artist does not tinker with the universe; he recreates it out of his own experience and understanding of life.
As an artist – as a poet; as a writer – you will conceive ideas that the teacher will love or hate; things that the politician will like or loathe; things that the doctor will condemn or recommend; things for which the policeman will want to arrest you or applaud you; things that the lawyer will invalidate or substantiate; things that your father will reject or respect. Don’t despair; you are an artist and give every man his proper dosage even if he will despise it. Its significance will be recognized later in this life journey.
Don’t worry of starting your artistic work because you are not sure if you will be able to finish it. No artist in the world ever finishes his work; we will all take it forward with a terrible speed, but life will force us to abandon it. We should be most interested to rediscover the universe; recreate the society; realign the political situation. Struggle not to complicate art. The farmer should discern it; the driver should uncover it; the politician should interpret it. Simplicity is the greatest adornment of art.
Our hearts should not grow weaker. Indeed we are burdened with the imposed inequities of our friends; those friends whom we cannot ignore; friends who are forcing us to love what we hate for to bring our society back to our roots, we have to show love by producing art that will rebuke them. As artists, we have unimaginable loads on our heads. And, yet, that is what should build our character because it is the nature of the strong heart that, like the palm tree it has to grow upwards when it is most burdened.
Well, this message is drawn from nature, the greatest form of art. Nature abhors a vacuum; nature desires that there should be continuity in it, that it draws together all forms of art. Just like Alexander Pope observed, nature itself is but art methodised. Art should retain its original position in government business. It should not conform to the laid down principles of politicians. It must not be in perfect terror of the loudest voices. Let art be like the soldier’s compass; a pilgrim’s staff. Art should be the basis of everything. Thus, we should produce art in abundance, for art summarises all life’s struggles.
Art has never slept, it only rests. Art will never be deleted, it may only be hidden. Art is the ultimate victory of our time, so should the artist be. Our deepest desire should be to produce more and more art. Let’s write poetry, let’s paint images, let’s sing songs, let’s even think aloud. And at the end, art will triumph. Art will reshape our society. Art will be the ultimate winner. And that will be our victory; the triumph of art.
The Urge Of A Desperate Heart
Conventional predictions of life sometimes tend to misfire, but that is the more reason why life is often described to be unpredictable. But, there are those things that happen in our lives which are perfectly given to tenets of predictability.
Desperate men can do desperate things. That is a saying which may be mostly contested by those men who haven’t been desperate enough to finally resort to desperate options. But, for me, there was this time in my life when I was so desperate that the final option was to undertake a desperate attempt. It happened in July 2004.
Perhaps, there should be a better explanation why luck chose to favour me when, in all truth and honestly, I was on the wrong side. But, as they say, fortune sometimes happens to serve those who rarely deserve it. And in our lives, nature refuses to conform to foreseeable progresses.
I was one of about ten students who had been dismissed from Palm Private Secondary School in Chitipa. Our crime was that we had been ring leaders in the students’ protests which culminated in the vandalism of school property and subsequent closure of the school.
Well, today may not be the right time for me to protest my innocence. It is the events that followed my life in the near future that seem to be perfectly set to occupy a good space in my autobiography. It might have happened in the blinking of some divine eye, but it was much – it was unbelievable and enough.
It was the fear of facing my father’s wrath after being dismissed from school that instantly hatched a desperate idea in me. I wasn’t going home; my parents and siblings would not take my dismissal lightly. I could imagine how they would all spare some time to ‘lecture’ me on the price of pride and peer pressure. But as I was to learn later, my fears had just been blown out of proportion.
Nevertheless, they had driven me to making a decision of boarding a car from Chitipa Boma to Karonga, passing by my home which was only 25 kilometres from my departure point and some 80 kilometres from my destination. I was in terrible desperation and all I wanted was to stay away from my parents for some time.
My initial plans were that after reaching Karonga, I would do some peace-works and earn some money that would take me to Chikhwawa, where my brother stayed. I had departed with K400 in my pocket, and by then it would cost K300 for transport for one to travel from Chitipa to Karonga. This meant that after arriving at Karonga, I was remaining with K100 in my pocket.
The level of my desperation exacerbated. It was now coupled with hunger, exhaustion and fear. But, I told myself that the next decision that I would make would define me: was I man enough?
The problem that I found at Karonga Boma was that there were many people that I knew there who also knew me, so I was afraid to face numerous questions from them about why I was there instead of being in school. Thus, I thought of boarding a bus to Chilumba Jetty. It meant that I was left without any money now. The sun was setting and my stomach kept rumbling.
At Chilumba Trading Centre I met a man whose job was to wash tankers which used to park at a Filling Station there. He agreed to host me for some time while I looked for a ‘job’. I stayed with him for three days until I decided that I was becoming a burden on him. I had searched for piece-works but to no avail.
Another desperate idea struck my mind. I thought of organisations or institutions that would come to my rescue but found nothing. That is when I decided to go to police. It was a decision made out of confusion and humility. After all, what would you expect from the heart of a desperate man?
I took my bag and arrived at the reception of Chilumba Police Post where I reported that I was on my way to Chikhwawa and my transport money had been stolen in the bus that I had boarded at Karonga Boma. The police officer I found at the reception looked askance at my statement and asked to look in my bag, saying I might have put my money there.
It was when he took my exercise books out of the bag that my stomach began to boil.
“You are a student at Palm [Private Secondary School] and you are going to see your brother in Chikhwawa when school is still in progress, what is wrong?” he asked, looking straight in my eyes.
I didn’t have an immediate answer. That led him to the next question: “Aren’t you one of those that were vandalising school property and you are running away?” The story about the vandalism and closure of the school had already been carried in the mainstream media.
Nervousness got complete hold of me, but things miraculously worked in my favour. A senior police officer arrived at the scene and asked his colleague what I was doing there. After being told that I claimed to have my transport money stolen on my way to Chikhwawa, he immediately made a verdict.
“Chikhwawa is further than Chitipa; so the best way is for you to return home and start your journey all over again,” he said with finality.
By then, I was ready to face the wrath of my parents. What I had gone through was terrible enough to erase my fear.
The same afternoon, I boarded a police car that took me to Karonga Police Station where I was ‘dumped’ in the hands of the Victim Support Unit where I was cared for very well.
The following morning I was given a letter which I was supposed to present at Bwiba Roadblock so that the officers there would find any means of transport for me. A police officer escorted me but he found a car that would take me home even before we reached the roadblock. Even though I had lied to the police on how I had found myself at Chilumba, they did a commendable job to ensure a prodigal son found his way back home.
At home, my parents and siblings received me with smiling faces, and it was only a month later when my dad told me that a good reputation is better than expensive perfume and that pride goes before a fall. These were the sayings which I had printed myself on a piece of cloth that was hanging in the sitting room of ‘our’ house.
Desperate men can do desperate things. That is a saying which may be mostly contested by those men who haven’t been desperate enough to finally resort to desperate options. But, for me, there was this time in my life when I was so desperate that the final option was to undertake a desperate attempt. It happened in July 2004.
Perhaps, there should be a better explanation why luck chose to favour me when, in all truth and honestly, I was on the wrong side. But, as they say, fortune sometimes happens to serve those who rarely deserve it. And in our lives, nature refuses to conform to foreseeable progresses.
I was one of about ten students who had been dismissed from Palm Private Secondary School in Chitipa. Our crime was that we had been ring leaders in the students’ protests which culminated in the vandalism of school property and subsequent closure of the school.
Well, today may not be the right time for me to protest my innocence. It is the events that followed my life in the near future that seem to be perfectly set to occupy a good space in my autobiography. It might have happened in the blinking of some divine eye, but it was much – it was unbelievable and enough.
It was the fear of facing my father’s wrath after being dismissed from school that instantly hatched a desperate idea in me. I wasn’t going home; my parents and siblings would not take my dismissal lightly. I could imagine how they would all spare some time to ‘lecture’ me on the price of pride and peer pressure. But as I was to learn later, my fears had just been blown out of proportion.
Nevertheless, they had driven me to making a decision of boarding a car from Chitipa Boma to Karonga, passing by my home which was only 25 kilometres from my departure point and some 80 kilometres from my destination. I was in terrible desperation and all I wanted was to stay away from my parents for some time.
My initial plans were that after reaching Karonga, I would do some peace-works and earn some money that would take me to Chikhwawa, where my brother stayed. I had departed with K400 in my pocket, and by then it would cost K300 for transport for one to travel from Chitipa to Karonga. This meant that after arriving at Karonga, I was remaining with K100 in my pocket.
The level of my desperation exacerbated. It was now coupled with hunger, exhaustion and fear. But, I told myself that the next decision that I would make would define me: was I man enough?
The problem that I found at Karonga Boma was that there were many people that I knew there who also knew me, so I was afraid to face numerous questions from them about why I was there instead of being in school. Thus, I thought of boarding a bus to Chilumba Jetty. It meant that I was left without any money now. The sun was setting and my stomach kept rumbling.
At Chilumba Trading Centre I met a man whose job was to wash tankers which used to park at a Filling Station there. He agreed to host me for some time while I looked for a ‘job’. I stayed with him for three days until I decided that I was becoming a burden on him. I had searched for piece-works but to no avail.
Another desperate idea struck my mind. I thought of organisations or institutions that would come to my rescue but found nothing. That is when I decided to go to police. It was a decision made out of confusion and humility. After all, what would you expect from the heart of a desperate man?
I took my bag and arrived at the reception of Chilumba Police Post where I reported that I was on my way to Chikhwawa and my transport money had been stolen in the bus that I had boarded at Karonga Boma. The police officer I found at the reception looked askance at my statement and asked to look in my bag, saying I might have put my money there.
It was when he took my exercise books out of the bag that my stomach began to boil.
“You are a student at Palm [Private Secondary School] and you are going to see your brother in Chikhwawa when school is still in progress, what is wrong?” he asked, looking straight in my eyes.
I didn’t have an immediate answer. That led him to the next question: “Aren’t you one of those that were vandalising school property and you are running away?” The story about the vandalism and closure of the school had already been carried in the mainstream media.
Nervousness got complete hold of me, but things miraculously worked in my favour. A senior police officer arrived at the scene and asked his colleague what I was doing there. After being told that I claimed to have my transport money stolen on my way to Chikhwawa, he immediately made a verdict.
“Chikhwawa is further than Chitipa; so the best way is for you to return home and start your journey all over again,” he said with finality.
By then, I was ready to face the wrath of my parents. What I had gone through was terrible enough to erase my fear.
The same afternoon, I boarded a police car that took me to Karonga Police Station where I was ‘dumped’ in the hands of the Victim Support Unit where I was cared for very well.
The following morning I was given a letter which I was supposed to present at Bwiba Roadblock so that the officers there would find any means of transport for me. A police officer escorted me but he found a car that would take me home even before we reached the roadblock. Even though I had lied to the police on how I had found myself at Chilumba, they did a commendable job to ensure a prodigal son found his way back home.
At home, my parents and siblings received me with smiling faces, and it was only a month later when my dad told me that a good reputation is better than expensive perfume and that pride goes before a fall. These were the sayings which I had printed myself on a piece of cloth that was hanging in the sitting room of ‘our’ house.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Dark Season
So here we are settling
Wondering no more
Accepting the last straw
Anger slowly boiling
To its most passive point
We believe this the joint
Where we can never leave
Others can never believe
But that is how dark it is
A dark season for us
A dark season for you
A brighter season for one
One man who knows not
How we live; how we breathe
We long for light
So we may clear our plight
Our pain, our sorrow
To end today or tomorrow
And one man watches
One man listens with a grin
He ignores all the coaches
Despises their last order
And all we have now
Is a dark season
A hopeless season
A season for our joy
To wither into his ploy
For him to be, us to be not
Wondering no more
Accepting the last straw
Anger slowly boiling
To its most passive point
We believe this the joint
Where we can never leave
Others can never believe
But that is how dark it is
A dark season for us
A dark season for you
A brighter season for one
One man who knows not
How we live; how we breathe
We long for light
So we may clear our plight
Our pain, our sorrow
To end today or tomorrow
And one man watches
One man listens with a grin
He ignores all the coaches
Despises their last order
And all we have now
Is a dark season
A hopeless season
A season for our joy
To wither into his ploy
For him to be, us to be not
Monday, November 21, 2011
MPs' Pay Hike Proposal: a Peculiar Priority
There are rich countries in the world that have rushed to top-prudence spending strategies because they are cautious about the progress of their economies. They are planning to spend discreetly the money that they have so that they shouldn’t be caught napping should things get out of hand.
And there is a poor African country that was once placed minutely below oil-rich Qatar in terms of the rate at which its economy was growing. But this country is now in dire straits because of self-centred economic policies which were framed on improbable assumptions.
Yet those in leadership positions seem to carelessly undermine the welfare of those that are not involved in direct decision-making policies, and they are willing to spend the money that we don’t have.
Malawi is fighting inequities from numerous fronts. There is the president who has plunged the country in seriously unimpressive bilateral relations with both our neighbours and our donors. There are those learned men and women at the Central Bank and the Malawi Revenue Authority who have found a way of piercing us where it pains most by setting aside millions of our scarce currency to construct swimming pools for themselves.
That is not all; wait, there is more: Members of Parliament seem to have a perfect way of mocking Malawi. For passing numerous ‘erroneous’ bills, these people want to be blessed with a salary hike – a complete mockery to those they ‘misrepresent’.
Civil servants can only be given a salary increment of seven percent because government does not have money to carter for anything more – at least, this is what we are compelled to believe. Yet, while other countries are critically regulating spending for the sake of their economies, our legislators are eager to tell government to spend the money that is not there.
That is pretty ironic. Parliament ceased to make sense many years ago because its occupants seldom tackle matters of public and common interest; and for a job half done in realigning the progress of our country, someone somewhere still believes he deserves a salary increment.
Man’s wisdom sometimes leaves a lot to be desired. It is only a few bills that are passed in Parliament without some resistance from the opposition side, but the salary increment proposal was adopted by most, if not all members present. Such self-centredness perhaps can be condoned by a breed of people who do not care about their purpose in this rational generation.
There are no drugs in hospitals; erratic water and electricity supply is having numerous repercussions on both our lives and our economy. Then there is the rationing of civil servants’ salaries without considering their respective responsibilities; talk of the increase in fuel prices, the scarcity of forex and even fuel itself; the rampant rise of commodity prices and many more. It is shock after shock until we cease to talk.
Amidst these troubles, our MPs have chosen to draw our attention to their fold because nothing else matters in Malawi more than their welfare does. To them, it would be better to have people dying in hospitals because of lack of drugs than to have three hundred thousand kwacha as their salary.
Their consciences are telling them that it would matter less to have civil servants’ salaries rationed, or commodity prices increased without civil servants’ salaries considerably increased at the same rate and pace, or to have no water or electricity for a good week. What matters to them is to cart home fat purses – a peculiar reward for doing nothing.
Well, whatever our MPs are attempting to achieve is perfectly set to test Bingu’s rationality. Here is a whole load of those that are entrusted with the responsibility of making and passing bad laws testing if the president really values the masses.
It is in matters like this where one needs to employ the utmost level of rationality. Bingu has his ‘Yes Sir’ children who pleased him by passing many controversial bills which obviously he had influenced their framework demanding a ridiculous salary increment. And these DPP MPs are standing on the same ground with their opposition counterparts – a rare occurrence in our Parliament, which mostly comes about when outlandish proposals like this are being made.
It may just be a matter of the cost-benefit option. The president will have to consider many factors regarding the scary salary increment proposal by the MPs. Of course, there is this chance to win back a good fraction of the public’s trust by rejecting the increment; not just part of it.
These are trying times as far as our economy is concerned, and after numerous economic gaffes, one needs to be careful of the last straw.
And there is a poor African country that was once placed minutely below oil-rich Qatar in terms of the rate at which its economy was growing. But this country is now in dire straits because of self-centred economic policies which were framed on improbable assumptions.
Yet those in leadership positions seem to carelessly undermine the welfare of those that are not involved in direct decision-making policies, and they are willing to spend the money that we don’t have.
Malawi is fighting inequities from numerous fronts. There is the president who has plunged the country in seriously unimpressive bilateral relations with both our neighbours and our donors. There are those learned men and women at the Central Bank and the Malawi Revenue Authority who have found a way of piercing us where it pains most by setting aside millions of our scarce currency to construct swimming pools for themselves.
That is not all; wait, there is more: Members of Parliament seem to have a perfect way of mocking Malawi. For passing numerous ‘erroneous’ bills, these people want to be blessed with a salary hike – a complete mockery to those they ‘misrepresent’.
Civil servants can only be given a salary increment of seven percent because government does not have money to carter for anything more – at least, this is what we are compelled to believe. Yet, while other countries are critically regulating spending for the sake of their economies, our legislators are eager to tell government to spend the money that is not there.
That is pretty ironic. Parliament ceased to make sense many years ago because its occupants seldom tackle matters of public and common interest; and for a job half done in realigning the progress of our country, someone somewhere still believes he deserves a salary increment.
Man’s wisdom sometimes leaves a lot to be desired. It is only a few bills that are passed in Parliament without some resistance from the opposition side, but the salary increment proposal was adopted by most, if not all members present. Such self-centredness perhaps can be condoned by a breed of people who do not care about their purpose in this rational generation.
There are no drugs in hospitals; erratic water and electricity supply is having numerous repercussions on both our lives and our economy. Then there is the rationing of civil servants’ salaries without considering their respective responsibilities; talk of the increase in fuel prices, the scarcity of forex and even fuel itself; the rampant rise of commodity prices and many more. It is shock after shock until we cease to talk.
Amidst these troubles, our MPs have chosen to draw our attention to their fold because nothing else matters in Malawi more than their welfare does. To them, it would be better to have people dying in hospitals because of lack of drugs than to have three hundred thousand kwacha as their salary.
Their consciences are telling them that it would matter less to have civil servants’ salaries rationed, or commodity prices increased without civil servants’ salaries considerably increased at the same rate and pace, or to have no water or electricity for a good week. What matters to them is to cart home fat purses – a peculiar reward for doing nothing.
Well, whatever our MPs are attempting to achieve is perfectly set to test Bingu’s rationality. Here is a whole load of those that are entrusted with the responsibility of making and passing bad laws testing if the president really values the masses.
It is in matters like this where one needs to employ the utmost level of rationality. Bingu has his ‘Yes Sir’ children who pleased him by passing many controversial bills which obviously he had influenced their framework demanding a ridiculous salary increment. And these DPP MPs are standing on the same ground with their opposition counterparts – a rare occurrence in our Parliament, which mostly comes about when outlandish proposals like this are being made.
It may just be a matter of the cost-benefit option. The president will have to consider many factors regarding the scary salary increment proposal by the MPs. Of course, there is this chance to win back a good fraction of the public’s trust by rejecting the increment; not just part of it.
These are trying times as far as our economy is concerned, and after numerous economic gaffes, one needs to be careful of the last straw.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
The Price Of Our Humility
Humility is a human trait that descends from the inner perception that the self needs to be aware of the peripheral in matters of mutual existence. It sometimes transcends love and compassion, for it may encompass them.
The humble do not always seem to be the victors in emerging African democracies; it is the rebellious that carry the day. Yet, any lesson in humility will always groom us to be calm and pacific even in the midst of turbulent waters.
On July 20, twenty Malawians were martyred in anti-government protests which for once, seemed set to bring Bingu wa Mutharika to reason. His subsequent national address a day later was initially somber-toned; but then that was a mistake the president quickly discovered: gentleness shouldn’t be part of his traits.
Twenty lives lost in your regime – where people are against your policies – should be a peace robbing scenario. In any case, their solemn souls must linger above your head, for if you never made the errors which those killed were trying to force you to realign, you would point fingers at others for the lost lives.
The 20 July demonstrations lasted a day in large part and that seems to be the reason we must pay a price. Perhaps, if the protests lasted a little longer, Mutharika would no longer be there at the State House today. But for one reason or another, the protests couldn’t go on, and that test on this regime appears to have been too little to stir anything at the State House.
We are just too humble, and for such humility, there is a cost. Our houses are being torched, our brothers are being brutally mauled to death after the presidential threat to smoke out any critic, but all we can do is sit back and be proud of our humility.
Coincidences occur in life, but then they have clearer explanations without suspicions if they don’t follow hot on the heels of anything. In any case, how do you explain a scenario where an authority threatens that all his critics will be dealt with proper, and then the critics begin to experience tragic acts? These shouldn’t be described as mysterious acts: they are clear manifestations of the threats proffered earlier on.
Robert Chasowa, a fourth year engineering student at the Malawi Polytechnic was the imminent pillar of hope – at least for someone. That’s where it stings deeper. Such a student who perfectly engineered his way into one of the most prestigious colleges in Malawi is finally no more, stopped by the accumulating evil of murderers in the making.
It is said he was being hunted by the police because of a one-page publication which used very critical language to rake the ills of the Mutharika administration. He was part of the crew that published the circular which came out weekly, and might as well go with his demise.
Robert was being hunted not to be tried, but to be killed. That’s how brutal life is. A young man who together with others was keen when it came to digging out secret information was supposed to be benefitted from. Some would use his undertakings to correct their problems, others would employ him in intelligence societies, but others still chose to end his life in such a heartrending fashion.
His mother did not have the energy to cry when she was brought to her son’s death scene. It was only her haggard body which spoke volumes of the pain that was smoldering in her heart as she tried to come to terms with the death of her beloved son. With all factors constant, Robert was supposed to leave college next year after successfully completing his Bachelor’s Degree. But, men with demonic hearts chose to cut short his stay in college – and on planet Earth.
The presidential assertion of smoking out critics is being perfectly implemented. The thugs target everyone deemed to be Mutharika’s enemy. They want to drive all of us into submission, or into hiding, or to our graves. All this is happening simply because we are so humble; too humble to ask the president to step down because of declaring war on his own people; too humble to band together and think of a better Malawi once and for all.
We are so humble that we watch one man – in his arrogance and stubbornness – steer our nation into untold tragedies, without forcing him to resign. And Mutharika himself knows that he is leading people whose barks are worse than their bites.
Our humility is costing our lives. It has filtered to the point where we seem to have no direction. A few people who would bring change to Mother Malawi are being butchered in cold blood, and we lack the conviction to let their blood not be shed in vain.
It only took the death of one man to initiate the revolution that spilt from Tunisia to other Arabic countries. Yet in Malawi, after the death of twenty-one people, those of us who are still living seem to be too humble to invade the streets of this country with our candles, our blankets and our cassette or CD players to dish out songs of freedom.
A few who have the inner conviction to fight are being killed; the rest of us are too humble to carry the fight on. And they must be turning in their graves now at a job they started which no one else seems to be willing to take up.
We keep waiting for the police to conclude investigations whose results they doctor before they even start – if they do them at all. Yet we pretty well know that these police officers are the very same people this regime is using to torment its own people. We are so humble that even if our brothers and sisters die brutally at the hands of this regime’s agents, we cannot do anything until we establish what really happened.
Mother Malawi is weeping – weeping really hard. She is crying for the lost souls that were set to bring change but have no one to pick up the relayed stick. Our country longs for men and women who will rise above the occasion and say enough is enough. These are the people Malawi needs now to save her from the pangs of agony she is rolling in.
Perhaps, for once, we should all be ready to die if that will mean saving our nation from destruction. We are the ones who can create hope for posterity. We can create a better Malawi for ourselves and our children. We must stand up and fight, or else we are doomed to be tormented by they that don’t even understand our history.
Well, as a writer, I have fervently refrained from writing my emotions in very explicit ways; but what is here comes from the deep recesses of my heart. Being a university student myself – my education progress brought to a pause by the gathering conceit of this regime – I keenly feel the pain of Robert’s death; this young man who will not be coming back sooner or later.
If death were some divine entity that would listen to the cries of they that are left behind, perhaps Robert Chasowa’s life would be revived by our tears. But death chooses to enter calm places where the pain would be so enormous. And, to those agents of death who slayed Robert, may peace be like gold dust to them. May they live to be haunted forever till they face God’s judgment at the end of their lives.
As we mourn the death of Robert, shouldn’t we sit down and reflect upon our country’s progress? Shouldn’t we judge that at least our patience has been strained to the limit? Should our humility continue costing lives that fervently fight for change? Perhaps, time has come for us to be humble no more. Maybe, this is the time we must rise and realign things in Malawi. We have the capacity to do so if we band together in hope and unity.
The humble do not always seem to be the victors in emerging African democracies; it is the rebellious that carry the day. Yet, any lesson in humility will always groom us to be calm and pacific even in the midst of turbulent waters.
On July 20, twenty Malawians were martyred in anti-government protests which for once, seemed set to bring Bingu wa Mutharika to reason. His subsequent national address a day later was initially somber-toned; but then that was a mistake the president quickly discovered: gentleness shouldn’t be part of his traits.
Twenty lives lost in your regime – where people are against your policies – should be a peace robbing scenario. In any case, their solemn souls must linger above your head, for if you never made the errors which those killed were trying to force you to realign, you would point fingers at others for the lost lives.
The 20 July demonstrations lasted a day in large part and that seems to be the reason we must pay a price. Perhaps, if the protests lasted a little longer, Mutharika would no longer be there at the State House today. But for one reason or another, the protests couldn’t go on, and that test on this regime appears to have been too little to stir anything at the State House.
We are just too humble, and for such humility, there is a cost. Our houses are being torched, our brothers are being brutally mauled to death after the presidential threat to smoke out any critic, but all we can do is sit back and be proud of our humility.
Coincidences occur in life, but then they have clearer explanations without suspicions if they don’t follow hot on the heels of anything. In any case, how do you explain a scenario where an authority threatens that all his critics will be dealt with proper, and then the critics begin to experience tragic acts? These shouldn’t be described as mysterious acts: they are clear manifestations of the threats proffered earlier on.
Robert Chasowa, a fourth year engineering student at the Malawi Polytechnic was the imminent pillar of hope – at least for someone. That’s where it stings deeper. Such a student who perfectly engineered his way into one of the most prestigious colleges in Malawi is finally no more, stopped by the accumulating evil of murderers in the making.
It is said he was being hunted by the police because of a one-page publication which used very critical language to rake the ills of the Mutharika administration. He was part of the crew that published the circular which came out weekly, and might as well go with his demise.
Robert was being hunted not to be tried, but to be killed. That’s how brutal life is. A young man who together with others was keen when it came to digging out secret information was supposed to be benefitted from. Some would use his undertakings to correct their problems, others would employ him in intelligence societies, but others still chose to end his life in such a heartrending fashion.
His mother did not have the energy to cry when she was brought to her son’s death scene. It was only her haggard body which spoke volumes of the pain that was smoldering in her heart as she tried to come to terms with the death of her beloved son. With all factors constant, Robert was supposed to leave college next year after successfully completing his Bachelor’s Degree. But, men with demonic hearts chose to cut short his stay in college – and on planet Earth.
The presidential assertion of smoking out critics is being perfectly implemented. The thugs target everyone deemed to be Mutharika’s enemy. They want to drive all of us into submission, or into hiding, or to our graves. All this is happening simply because we are so humble; too humble to ask the president to step down because of declaring war on his own people; too humble to band together and think of a better Malawi once and for all.
We are so humble that we watch one man – in his arrogance and stubbornness – steer our nation into untold tragedies, without forcing him to resign. And Mutharika himself knows that he is leading people whose barks are worse than their bites.
Our humility is costing our lives. It has filtered to the point where we seem to have no direction. A few people who would bring change to Mother Malawi are being butchered in cold blood, and we lack the conviction to let their blood not be shed in vain.
It only took the death of one man to initiate the revolution that spilt from Tunisia to other Arabic countries. Yet in Malawi, after the death of twenty-one people, those of us who are still living seem to be too humble to invade the streets of this country with our candles, our blankets and our cassette or CD players to dish out songs of freedom.
A few who have the inner conviction to fight are being killed; the rest of us are too humble to carry the fight on. And they must be turning in their graves now at a job they started which no one else seems to be willing to take up.
We keep waiting for the police to conclude investigations whose results they doctor before they even start – if they do them at all. Yet we pretty well know that these police officers are the very same people this regime is using to torment its own people. We are so humble that even if our brothers and sisters die brutally at the hands of this regime’s agents, we cannot do anything until we establish what really happened.
Mother Malawi is weeping – weeping really hard. She is crying for the lost souls that were set to bring change but have no one to pick up the relayed stick. Our country longs for men and women who will rise above the occasion and say enough is enough. These are the people Malawi needs now to save her from the pangs of agony she is rolling in.
Perhaps, for once, we should all be ready to die if that will mean saving our nation from destruction. We are the ones who can create hope for posterity. We can create a better Malawi for ourselves and our children. We must stand up and fight, or else we are doomed to be tormented by they that don’t even understand our history.
Well, as a writer, I have fervently refrained from writing my emotions in very explicit ways; but what is here comes from the deep recesses of my heart. Being a university student myself – my education progress brought to a pause by the gathering conceit of this regime – I keenly feel the pain of Robert’s death; this young man who will not be coming back sooner or later.
If death were some divine entity that would listen to the cries of they that are left behind, perhaps Robert Chasowa’s life would be revived by our tears. But death chooses to enter calm places where the pain would be so enormous. And, to those agents of death who slayed Robert, may peace be like gold dust to them. May they live to be haunted forever till they face God’s judgment at the end of their lives.
As we mourn the death of Robert, shouldn’t we sit down and reflect upon our country’s progress? Shouldn’t we judge that at least our patience has been strained to the limit? Should our humility continue costing lives that fervently fight for change? Perhaps, time has come for us to be humble no more. Maybe, this is the time we must rise and realign things in Malawi. We have the capacity to do so if we band together in hope and unity.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
An Ugly Battle Of Wits
There is no better place for a child’s character training than the school since this is where he has contacts with others. In fact, education in itself is naturally designed to develop citizens intellectually, spiritually, morally and, of course, physically. While at school, a child inherently seeks these types of growth even though he might not be immediately aware of this.
Every education curriculum in in Malawi seeks to develop positive personalities in individuals so that they do not only attain intellectual development. This is because we are all social beings that are supposed to interact with our fellow human beings in different scenarios.
In primary and secondary schools, pupils oftentimes take everything that their teachers say as the gospel truth and are compelled to believe it without much as hard work. This is why these teachers are supposed to be exemplary in their behaviours.
But in colleges, students are mostly left to develop their own personalities in practical terms, using theories, some of which may not work very well when put in practice. However, the mutual understanding is that college students are mature people who can take care of themselves, hence their teachers seldom concentrate on building positive personalities out of them.
Nevertheless, college teachers are not excluded when it comes to showing positive traits of humanity. They are social beings too who must comply with the dictates of society and must not act like animals that do not care about morality.
However, of late, there have been some peculiar cases within the main constituent college of the University of Malawi, Chancellor College, where some lecturers have taken it so personal that they have shelved their morals and engaged in very ugly battle of wits that at the end have just exposed very ugly sides of their lives.
Eccentricity in university colleges among students is not a strange phenomenon. And university colleges are supposed to be first places where eccentricity must be accommodated; after all, students in these places come from different backgrounds and therefore, eccentricity in this case, makes sense.
But eccentricity among university lectures may almost seem an impossibility. These are “more” mature individuals who are given the responsibility of finishing up the molding of future leaders, and we expect them to guard their morals as much as they can.
Yet, there have been cases of calling each other names like sorcerers, drunkards and many other undesirable names. Essentially, the whole ugly battle of wits has been going on at Chanco where some lecturers thought their colleagues who were fighting for academic freedom were not fighting for a right cause, or had taken things too far.
Whatever the case, the approaches in “countering” their colleagues haven’t been the best ever. There is one former Chanco lecturer named Linje Manyozo who in rebuking his Chanco colleagues who were boycotting classes used very undiplomatic language.
In his wisdom, the learned man (who calculated his way into one of the world’s most prestigious institutions of higher learning, the London School of Economics, where he is studying for his PhD, or just chanced upon it), described the “striking” lecturers as drunkards and sorcerers.
One would never be wrong to doubt the educational benefit of this learned man. Isn’t education supposed to shape us into covetable human beings whose morals should be different from those of savages?
Then there is also one other lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the same Chanco who castigated his colleagues using very odd language. Instead of controlling his emotions, his emotions controlled him such that he lost touch with reality and began to think like he was dealing with animals, not human beings.
These ugly battle of wits paint a very bad picture of the university’s reputation. In fact, they lead to questioning the criteria that are followed when employing university lecturers. After all, there have been speculations that some of these “undiplomatic” lecturers have very undesirable records.
Above everything, university lecturers must refrain from using undiplomatic language when dealing with anything. They are considered as people who understand that morality supersedes any kind of intelligence, and when they engage in ugly battle of wits, we tend to question whether they have benefitted enough from their education.
Every education curriculum in in Malawi seeks to develop positive personalities in individuals so that they do not only attain intellectual development. This is because we are all social beings that are supposed to interact with our fellow human beings in different scenarios.
In primary and secondary schools, pupils oftentimes take everything that their teachers say as the gospel truth and are compelled to believe it without much as hard work. This is why these teachers are supposed to be exemplary in their behaviours.
But in colleges, students are mostly left to develop their own personalities in practical terms, using theories, some of which may not work very well when put in practice. However, the mutual understanding is that college students are mature people who can take care of themselves, hence their teachers seldom concentrate on building positive personalities out of them.
Nevertheless, college teachers are not excluded when it comes to showing positive traits of humanity. They are social beings too who must comply with the dictates of society and must not act like animals that do not care about morality.
However, of late, there have been some peculiar cases within the main constituent college of the University of Malawi, Chancellor College, where some lecturers have taken it so personal that they have shelved their morals and engaged in very ugly battle of wits that at the end have just exposed very ugly sides of their lives.
Eccentricity in university colleges among students is not a strange phenomenon. And university colleges are supposed to be first places where eccentricity must be accommodated; after all, students in these places come from different backgrounds and therefore, eccentricity in this case, makes sense.
But eccentricity among university lectures may almost seem an impossibility. These are “more” mature individuals who are given the responsibility of finishing up the molding of future leaders, and we expect them to guard their morals as much as they can.
Yet, there have been cases of calling each other names like sorcerers, drunkards and many other undesirable names. Essentially, the whole ugly battle of wits has been going on at Chanco where some lecturers thought their colleagues who were fighting for academic freedom were not fighting for a right cause, or had taken things too far.
Whatever the case, the approaches in “countering” their colleagues haven’t been the best ever. There is one former Chanco lecturer named Linje Manyozo who in rebuking his Chanco colleagues who were boycotting classes used very undiplomatic language.
In his wisdom, the learned man (who calculated his way into one of the world’s most prestigious institutions of higher learning, the London School of Economics, where he is studying for his PhD, or just chanced upon it), described the “striking” lecturers as drunkards and sorcerers.
One would never be wrong to doubt the educational benefit of this learned man. Isn’t education supposed to shape us into covetable human beings whose morals should be different from those of savages?
Then there is also one other lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the same Chanco who castigated his colleagues using very odd language. Instead of controlling his emotions, his emotions controlled him such that he lost touch with reality and began to think like he was dealing with animals, not human beings.
These ugly battle of wits paint a very bad picture of the university’s reputation. In fact, they lead to questioning the criteria that are followed when employing university lecturers. After all, there have been speculations that some of these “undiplomatic” lecturers have very undesirable records.
Above everything, university lecturers must refrain from using undiplomatic language when dealing with anything. They are considered as people who understand that morality supersedes any kind of intelligence, and when they engage in ugly battle of wits, we tend to question whether they have benefitted enough from their education.
Death The Ultimate Loser
In memory of O'Brien Nadzombe
When death beckons a frail soul
When death knocks up a falling giant
When it breaks down a fragile heart
Even when it takes a willful soldier
Death will not dominate life
Death will always be the final actor
Death will not enjoy the final act
Death will end on a deserted stage
For death kills not, silences not
Death is just a crude inordinate point
An unjustifiable connection he is
He shouldn’t be a feared master
As though death could control life
He fears life that not so soon retires
For such a life lives longer than death
It lives after death, death the ultimate loser
Death cannot take away this verse
This pompous snag he cannot kill
This poem sprays death with poison
A verse like this lives after death
Death can’t be feared by this poem
Or any other poem recited before
When death comes death goes
Death lacks permanence in life
Death won’t be there after his arrival
Death shouldn’t be blamed, chastised
He shouldn’t be worshipped, praised
Death should be mocked, castigated
Because death is a toothless monster
Death is a broken hero, a failure
Death wins not in life’s fatal games
Life ends in death, death the ultimate loser
When death beckons a frail soul
When death knocks up a falling giant
When it breaks down a fragile heart
Even when it takes a willful soldier
Death will not dominate life
Death will always be the final actor
Death will not enjoy the final act
Death will end on a deserted stage
For death kills not, silences not
Death is just a crude inordinate point
An unjustifiable connection he is
He shouldn’t be a feared master
As though death could control life
He fears life that not so soon retires
For such a life lives longer than death
It lives after death, death the ultimate loser
Death cannot take away this verse
This pompous snag he cannot kill
This poem sprays death with poison
A verse like this lives after death
Death can’t be feared by this poem
Or any other poem recited before
When death comes death goes
Death lacks permanence in life
Death won’t be there after his arrival
Death shouldn’t be blamed, chastised
He shouldn’t be worshipped, praised
Death should be mocked, castigated
Because death is a toothless monster
Death is a broken hero, a failure
Death wins not in life’s fatal games
Life ends in death, death the ultimate loser
Life At Best Is Brief
It is mostly the nature of life to be brief during moments when things seem to work the most. When we are drowned in an aura of all hopefulness because there is practically nothing to grumble about, life usually takes another turn and leaves us regretting.
Yet, such abnormality of life is normal: it has to take different turns so we do not develop a habit of its progress. But the problem is that while life is at its best for us, we often rest on our laurels and let things progress the way they may.
The brevity of life at best is common among all humanity. It affects entrepreneurs, civil servants, and even sportsmen. Thus, it is only wise to put in place all precautionary measures so that when life’s better moments are dying in the embers of ingloriousness, something should be there to propel us forward.
Sports is not a lifelong career for anyone. Even when one retires from being a sportsman and becomes a coach, there is no guarantee that the person would be in the job for the rest of his life. There comes moments in our lives when we may be incapable of working for ourselves so that we earn a living. These are moments when we are supposed to rest and depend on what we saved during that time when our life was at its best.
Yet, most sportsmen have shown that they do not care about saving a little something when they are at the acme of their careers so that they should not be hurting when mischance strikes. They take all pleasure in consuming whatever they have such that when they retire, or things just stop working for them, they have no shoulder to cry on.
Of course, it is true that most sportsmen in Malawi get very little rewards that they can hardly carter for their daily needs. But still, that little may be invested even if the starting point seems to be just too minute. If the sportsman clearly knows that at the end of his career, he will not have anywhere else to rely on, it is imperative to invest in something else for the sake of the future.
There are other sportsmen who do not get very little rewards as to prevent them from saving a little something so that they will not have untold financial problems when their best moments are over. Yet, they do not have time to think about this, and die poor.
We all know that sometimes when one has money, it is very tempting to squander it all without thinking about what will happen in the future. The spirit of letting tomorrow care for itself has seen many people having financial problems in the future.
Luxuries are good for life, but if you know that you will not be able to afford the most important needs, it is imperative to avoid luxuries because they are liabilities. Instead, you may need to invest in assets that will continue bringing you income even after your best moment is over. That little that the assets will bring might be enough for survival.
This article has not just sprouted from nothingness. I have personally seen how some sportsmen who were doing very well during they heydays are suffering now, simply because they did not invest or save for the future. During their most successful moments, they forgot that money comes and goes and should better be invested or saved so that there should be no regrets in the future.
I have also seen some sportsmen who spend money on luxuries that can be shelved for the future. Well, perhaps they have their own ways of taking care of their futures, but still it is important for sportsmen to minimize luxurious lives when things are best for them for they do not know how long that good moment will last. If they have other ways of getting their income, all fine.
All in all, sportsmen must know that life at best is brief. As such, it is important to put into place measures that will make sure things do not turn bad in the future when the good moments are over. This is just a concern.
Yet, such abnormality of life is normal: it has to take different turns so we do not develop a habit of its progress. But the problem is that while life is at its best for us, we often rest on our laurels and let things progress the way they may.
The brevity of life at best is common among all humanity. It affects entrepreneurs, civil servants, and even sportsmen. Thus, it is only wise to put in place all precautionary measures so that when life’s better moments are dying in the embers of ingloriousness, something should be there to propel us forward.
Sports is not a lifelong career for anyone. Even when one retires from being a sportsman and becomes a coach, there is no guarantee that the person would be in the job for the rest of his life. There comes moments in our lives when we may be incapable of working for ourselves so that we earn a living. These are moments when we are supposed to rest and depend on what we saved during that time when our life was at its best.
Yet, most sportsmen have shown that they do not care about saving a little something when they are at the acme of their careers so that they should not be hurting when mischance strikes. They take all pleasure in consuming whatever they have such that when they retire, or things just stop working for them, they have no shoulder to cry on.
Of course, it is true that most sportsmen in Malawi get very little rewards that they can hardly carter for their daily needs. But still, that little may be invested even if the starting point seems to be just too minute. If the sportsman clearly knows that at the end of his career, he will not have anywhere else to rely on, it is imperative to invest in something else for the sake of the future.
There are other sportsmen who do not get very little rewards as to prevent them from saving a little something so that they will not have untold financial problems when their best moments are over. Yet, they do not have time to think about this, and die poor.
We all know that sometimes when one has money, it is very tempting to squander it all without thinking about what will happen in the future. The spirit of letting tomorrow care for itself has seen many people having financial problems in the future.
Luxuries are good for life, but if you know that you will not be able to afford the most important needs, it is imperative to avoid luxuries because they are liabilities. Instead, you may need to invest in assets that will continue bringing you income even after your best moment is over. That little that the assets will bring might be enough for survival.
This article has not just sprouted from nothingness. I have personally seen how some sportsmen who were doing very well during they heydays are suffering now, simply because they did not invest or save for the future. During their most successful moments, they forgot that money comes and goes and should better be invested or saved so that there should be no regrets in the future.
I have also seen some sportsmen who spend money on luxuries that can be shelved for the future. Well, perhaps they have their own ways of taking care of their futures, but still it is important for sportsmen to minimize luxurious lives when things are best for them for they do not know how long that good moment will last. If they have other ways of getting their income, all fine.
All in all, sportsmen must know that life at best is brief. As such, it is important to put into place measures that will make sure things do not turn bad in the future when the good moments are over. This is just a concern.
The Paradox Of Information Sources
The fact that the Road Traffic Department (RTD) was declared the most secretive public institution in the country by the Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa)-Malawi Chapter sometime back did not provide good reading, especially in this era when information dissemination is very crucial to development. Yet, it is not only the RTD that is economic with information when it comes to revealing to the media what they know.
When reporting on different issues taking place in the country and elsewhere, the media relies extensively on information provided to them by different informants. For verification of stories, there is need for some relevant or ‘highly-placed sources’ to say something that would either validate the story or provide more information on it or both.
This might be the case even where the report contains material that is generally known by almost everyone. News pieces are different from feature articles or opinions where someone can write their own ideas throughout the piece. They require interviews and sometimes even photographs which may ultimately substantiate the whole story that is being carried.
Yet in Malawi, there is a widespread tendency for people who would provide information on certain stories to refuse to talk to the media. Most stories carried in our local papers indicate that nearly half of the reports carried are never fully-fed because relevant sources are usually disinclined to provide information to the media.
Malawians have the right to access to information and this is largely fulfilled through the media because it is the most effective way of disseminating information. It is illogical that some individuals holding different positions especially in governmental and non-governmental organisations do not care about giving information to the media on issues which the nation at large needs to be aware of.
And the funny thing is that when reporters resort to other ‘anonymous sources’ for the sake of the readers, these unwilling individuals rush to bash reporters terming them unprofessional. Where do they think the reporters can get the information from apart from the ‘anonymous sources’ if they themselves are non-committal on commenting on issues in which they are directly involved?
It does not do Malawians justice to see a burning story end in suspense or never come out altogether just because someone does not want to speak to the media. And the most ridiculous thing is that these non-committal officers do not provide any reason for their unwillingness that can be worthy the fig.
There are many stories which are left underlying just because there is no one to validate them and reporters cannot report them for fear of finding themselves on the wrong side of the law. Those who would say something on the story (because they know something) usually shun the media.
In certain instances, it has been observed that they only promise to call back only to switch off their phones. In other instances, you find that instead of someone refuting a story that was validated by other sources, they only rush to hang the phone up or to tell the reporter that it is their paper that is doing what is said to have been done. Is this the way officers have to react to the media? If ‘highly-placed sources’ act like this, who will be the media’s source in Malawi?
Sometime back, I was in Tanzania on a certain mission and I tried to survey a number of the Eastern African country’s papers to see how sources cooperate with the media. Most of the stories carried made a very good reading because there was a lot of information on them. This was in virtue of the fact that people in the country, particularly high-positioned officers, are very much willing to speak to the media.
We do not need civic education in Malawi on how important it is to provide the media with information, relevant of course.
In other instances, there is also the problem of shifting the ball from one court to another until the reporter gets tired and time runs out. A reporter calls someone to source information on a certain story and that someone refers the reporter to someone else and a long chain is created where at the end is the very same person who made the initial ‘reference’.
It is not always the case that every piece of information has to come out through the public relations officers or the spokespersons. Sometimes there is need for the bosses themselves to say something and all they can say is that they are in a meeting. This is even if you saw them driving down the highway only some seconds ago
When reporting on different issues taking place in the country and elsewhere, the media relies extensively on information provided to them by different informants. For verification of stories, there is need for some relevant or ‘highly-placed sources’ to say something that would either validate the story or provide more information on it or both.
This might be the case even where the report contains material that is generally known by almost everyone. News pieces are different from feature articles or opinions where someone can write their own ideas throughout the piece. They require interviews and sometimes even photographs which may ultimately substantiate the whole story that is being carried.
Yet in Malawi, there is a widespread tendency for people who would provide information on certain stories to refuse to talk to the media. Most stories carried in our local papers indicate that nearly half of the reports carried are never fully-fed because relevant sources are usually disinclined to provide information to the media.
Malawians have the right to access to information and this is largely fulfilled through the media because it is the most effective way of disseminating information. It is illogical that some individuals holding different positions especially in governmental and non-governmental organisations do not care about giving information to the media on issues which the nation at large needs to be aware of.
And the funny thing is that when reporters resort to other ‘anonymous sources’ for the sake of the readers, these unwilling individuals rush to bash reporters terming them unprofessional. Where do they think the reporters can get the information from apart from the ‘anonymous sources’ if they themselves are non-committal on commenting on issues in which they are directly involved?
It does not do Malawians justice to see a burning story end in suspense or never come out altogether just because someone does not want to speak to the media. And the most ridiculous thing is that these non-committal officers do not provide any reason for their unwillingness that can be worthy the fig.
There are many stories which are left underlying just because there is no one to validate them and reporters cannot report them for fear of finding themselves on the wrong side of the law. Those who would say something on the story (because they know something) usually shun the media.
In certain instances, it has been observed that they only promise to call back only to switch off their phones. In other instances, you find that instead of someone refuting a story that was validated by other sources, they only rush to hang the phone up or to tell the reporter that it is their paper that is doing what is said to have been done. Is this the way officers have to react to the media? If ‘highly-placed sources’ act like this, who will be the media’s source in Malawi?
Sometime back, I was in Tanzania on a certain mission and I tried to survey a number of the Eastern African country’s papers to see how sources cooperate with the media. Most of the stories carried made a very good reading because there was a lot of information on them. This was in virtue of the fact that people in the country, particularly high-positioned officers, are very much willing to speak to the media.
We do not need civic education in Malawi on how important it is to provide the media with information, relevant of course.
In other instances, there is also the problem of shifting the ball from one court to another until the reporter gets tired and time runs out. A reporter calls someone to source information on a certain story and that someone refers the reporter to someone else and a long chain is created where at the end is the very same person who made the initial ‘reference’.
It is not always the case that every piece of information has to come out through the public relations officers or the spokespersons. Sometimes there is need for the bosses themselves to say something and all they can say is that they are in a meeting. This is even if you saw them driving down the highway only some seconds ago
One For Our Coaches
It is normally supposed to be the promise of football for a team to do better in the next game than in the previous one. Yet such a thing is not so common in Malawi football, and no soul can claim with all conclusiveness that such a scenario is going to happen because the performance of our football clubs usually heralds both hope and misery.
You do not necessarily need to have been a soccer star in the previous moments for you to become the world’s best football coach. It is only imperative that you know what a good footballer needs to possess and what the whole team as an anthology needs to do to win. This includes even if you yourself can never reach that level of perfection that you want your charges to attain.
A coach needs to put into place all feasible criteria that have the potential of making his team win; such is the sole intention of coaching. No coach ever wants to lose, and no club owner can be happy with losing, that is why most coaches get the boot when they fail to impress.
Real Madrid manager José Morihno has never been a soccer star in his life, neither does he possess any record to have played professional football anywhere. Yet, he defied the odds and is now one of the world’s most successful coaches.
Not that there is anything peculiar about him, but his passion for football brought him into the game and as his interest grew, he also improved his coaching tactics.
Another thing that makes Morihno “the special one” is his carefulness when it comes to selection of players who should grace his squad. There are many coaches who are given big chunks of money to buy players with but what they come up with are pathetic boys who can hardly impress on the pitch.
When he took over a pathetic Chelsea in the 2004/2005 season, no one understood at first what he had in store for the English football club, but a season later, he blazed the trail and his popularity made sense to most of us.
But the question that should be asked about the success or failure of football coaches, and of course, all other coaches is: what makes them so – successful of failing?
One thing that has to be appreciated is that coaches too need to be coached so that they improve on their performance. It is true that as they do their job, the next game is normally supposed to be better than the previous but this appears to be just so theoretical in Malawi.
We have football clubs that have coaches that were soccer stars at some point in their football career but they fail to deliver. Of course, there are many factors that contribute to this. One of these factors is lack of knowledge of their opponents.
It is only when you know all the weak and strong angles of your opponent that you can put into place valid strategies of approaching them. But most coaches in Malawi (in my opinion and from how I have seen it) usually use the usual common strategies even if they are meeting another team whose strategies are completely different from those of the team they last met.
Though this appears to be a small issue, it has the potential of adversely affecting the performance of the team because they do not necessarily know how to attack their opponents and how to build their defence.
Another thing is that most coaches are not eager to incorporate into their teams young and inexperienced players who can be perfected right there. They are always eager to get players who have already made it big and the result is that sometimes they fail to control the players because they might have their own ways of playing which can seldom be altered – it’s kind of difficult to teach an old dog new tricks, especially when you have owned it when it is already old.
Patience is another thing that lacks in most of our coaches. They usually do not take long to lose their cool when they see that one player is tripping and they subsequently make frustrated decisions by substituting the player. Hasty substitutions sometimes destroy the progress of the game and get the players disorganized.
Although it is usually supposed to be the nature of football for a team to do better in the next game than it did in the past, this is not so automatic. It requires coaches that are visionary and understand that they are not simply there to give directions to their charges, but to give them the winning formula.
And if our coaches need to do better, they also need to be coached so that they get some winning tips from some successful mentors. Otherwise, one may be forgiven for intimating with all audacity that football clubs in Malawi do not necessarily need coaches because coaches contribute very little to the progress of the clubs, as the clubs usually remain on the same rating.
You do not necessarily need to have been a soccer star in the previous moments for you to become the world’s best football coach. It is only imperative that you know what a good footballer needs to possess and what the whole team as an anthology needs to do to win. This includes even if you yourself can never reach that level of perfection that you want your charges to attain.
A coach needs to put into place all feasible criteria that have the potential of making his team win; such is the sole intention of coaching. No coach ever wants to lose, and no club owner can be happy with losing, that is why most coaches get the boot when they fail to impress.
Real Madrid manager José Morihno has never been a soccer star in his life, neither does he possess any record to have played professional football anywhere. Yet, he defied the odds and is now one of the world’s most successful coaches.
Not that there is anything peculiar about him, but his passion for football brought him into the game and as his interest grew, he also improved his coaching tactics.
Another thing that makes Morihno “the special one” is his carefulness when it comes to selection of players who should grace his squad. There are many coaches who are given big chunks of money to buy players with but what they come up with are pathetic boys who can hardly impress on the pitch.
When he took over a pathetic Chelsea in the 2004/2005 season, no one understood at first what he had in store for the English football club, but a season later, he blazed the trail and his popularity made sense to most of us.
But the question that should be asked about the success or failure of football coaches, and of course, all other coaches is: what makes them so – successful of failing?
One thing that has to be appreciated is that coaches too need to be coached so that they improve on their performance. It is true that as they do their job, the next game is normally supposed to be better than the previous but this appears to be just so theoretical in Malawi.
We have football clubs that have coaches that were soccer stars at some point in their football career but they fail to deliver. Of course, there are many factors that contribute to this. One of these factors is lack of knowledge of their opponents.
It is only when you know all the weak and strong angles of your opponent that you can put into place valid strategies of approaching them. But most coaches in Malawi (in my opinion and from how I have seen it) usually use the usual common strategies even if they are meeting another team whose strategies are completely different from those of the team they last met.
Though this appears to be a small issue, it has the potential of adversely affecting the performance of the team because they do not necessarily know how to attack their opponents and how to build their defence.
Another thing is that most coaches are not eager to incorporate into their teams young and inexperienced players who can be perfected right there. They are always eager to get players who have already made it big and the result is that sometimes they fail to control the players because they might have their own ways of playing which can seldom be altered – it’s kind of difficult to teach an old dog new tricks, especially when you have owned it when it is already old.
Patience is another thing that lacks in most of our coaches. They usually do not take long to lose their cool when they see that one player is tripping and they subsequently make frustrated decisions by substituting the player. Hasty substitutions sometimes destroy the progress of the game and get the players disorganized.
Although it is usually supposed to be the nature of football for a team to do better in the next game than it did in the past, this is not so automatic. It requires coaches that are visionary and understand that they are not simply there to give directions to their charges, but to give them the winning formula.
And if our coaches need to do better, they also need to be coached so that they get some winning tips from some successful mentors. Otherwise, one may be forgiven for intimating with all audacity that football clubs in Malawi do not necessarily need coaches because coaches contribute very little to the progress of the clubs, as the clubs usually remain on the same rating.
Deliberating On Our Declining Principles
Morality, oftentimes, tends to speak for itself. It is naturally embedded on hearts of all humanity, and always convicts us in whatever we do. Even serial killers have their good consciences which always knock at the doors of their hearts every moment they shed blood.
Sometimes in life, driven by circumstances, a human being is supposed to abandon his strong principles and adjust to change for the sake of progress. There is no progress unless one has allowed himself to engage into other ‘innovative’ aspects which were not peculiar to them in the first place.
Change always brings something new; but the most significant thing that counts is assessing what kind of change is morally acceptable. There are instances where change – even if it was not being approved in the first place – gets accepted and becomes an axiom of morality. This is solely because a human being is a social being who needs to adjust according to the dictates of circumstances while not committing an offence against himself or the society within which he lives.
However, still more, sometimes if some kind of change is necessary, but the majority does not hold with it, the minority needs to strategise so as to persuade the majority to adopt the new ‘development’.
In fact, without change, history would be meaningless. It is because humans and nature as a whole go through different levels in their lives that there is the need to preserve that which happened long ago. If that was not the case, it would be just as significant to look at what is happening now, for it would not be any different from what happened yesterday.
Governments change, generations change, natural elements go through processes of mutation and nothing remains the same forever. Above all, the world always changes and nothing in it will remain forever, for every change that it undergoes is a catalyst for changes of everything within it.
Yet in Malawi, it appears some people (pardon my bluntness) are still stuck in the past with so much stubbornness and tradition that to them every kind of change appears to be “a Whiteman’s concern”. These attitudes and behaviour that are characteristic of some Malawians are not conducive for development.
During the transition process from one party system of government to multiparty politics, some people could not just accept that such an aspect in Malawi politics was a very needful thing. They kept on worshipping the former president, the late Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda, and went on to argue that they were not ready “to live without Dr. Banda at the helm.” This was just a manifestation of rigidity to change.
They had gotten so much used to Dr. Banda’s cruel system of governance that it had finally become part of their lives. To them, that which they had lived with for so long was better than something that they were not aware of. Yet, everything about multiparty politics had been advocated for times without number.
They were ‘safe’ in following the culture of ‘nurturing’ what they had instead of adjusting to that necessary change. In other words, they got so much used to the culture of suffering that to them, it was not necessary to have freedom. Such kinds of mindsets are perilous as long as development is concerned.
Sometimes, we take some of the things that would otherwise improve our lives as “those of Westerners” because of a culture of exclusion and self-segregation. It is high time we began to consider adjusting to change. However, scrutiny is always necessary; but stubbornness should never be welcome!
It is mostly true that culture is a powerful human tool for survival, but it is supposed to be a fragile phenomenon. It is supposed to be constantly changing and easily lost because it exists only in our minds. And, therefore, it is only when we change our mindsets that we may adequately develop.
But, what does it tell us about adjusting to change when a girl almost goes nude in public? What does it pumps into the deep recesses of our hearts if a Malawian girl accepts that her humble body be the centre of public attention simply because it is not properly covered? What does it mean for us when Malawians shoot porn movies which are finally uploaded them on the internet? What does it tell us when a man ravishes his own daughter?
Perhaps, all these and many more immoral tragedies rocking Malawi speak volumes about why change has to be always scrutinized before it is accepted. They tell us that there are still some deviants of society who would never adhere to the conventional principles of how human beings are supposed to behave.
That is why an “Action Girl” had to have the pleasure of taking a picture of herself with only a scanty top and a wallet covering her private parts and sent it for publication in the Weekend Times of today. Whether it is for want of money or not, the girl’s action is just disgusting. She may have a right to do whatever she wants, but she has to take to heart that every right remains a right only if it is morally right.
In his book titled ‘At the Altar of Sexual Idolatry’, Steve Gallagher writes and I quote: “Unless you are at least 50-years-old you probably do not know what it is to live in a culture that isn’t obsessed with sex. Prior to the late 60’s, illicit sex was only confined to the seedy underworld or simply non-existent. It was rare for a man watching TV to come across anything racier than a couple kissing or a vague suggesting comment. Pornography addiction amounted to nothing more than a playboy magazine hidden under the bed.”
Steve wrote this with reference to the American society. However, if we are to apply this in the Malawi setting, we may say “at the beginning the second millennium” instead of “prior to the late 60’s” because issues of sex and pornography rocked Malawian societies first during the period.
Now, it appears we are living in the deep recesses of a dangerously sexualized society; a society that has put sex as the overriding passion of human survival. It is a society that has completely lost its values. Human wisdom has been utterly poisoned and those who advocate for a return to our roots lack all conviction. In regards to morality, our humble nation, is heading towards a horrible ‘head-on collision’ unless positive change is effected immediately.
Now there are social sites like Facebook, Mxit, Waplog and many more. The sites which connect people from different parts of the world have become places where youths think they can express their sexual desires and meet people whom they can interact with sexually.
In most cases of pornography, men are the ones who mostly appear to ‘institute’ everything due to the Malawian tradition that a woman can rarely propose to a man. This is argued against the background of the fact that women are mostly the ones who entice and lure men. Coupled with the nude pictures of women which addicted men may view, like that of the Action Girl, is the skinny dressing of most contemporary girls.
While a man will go out during hot weather like the one Malawi is experiencing putting on a short and a vest, a girl will find an opportunity of exposing herself by putting on ‘classy’ clothes like low-cut blouses which, as if the fact that they are low-cut is not enough harm already, do not even cover up the navel. Nowadays, most young girls simply understand that if they have to be noticed (by men, of course) they have to be scantily dressed.
Now, a man who might have spent a lot of time thinking of how to act out his lust will immediately ‘pounce’ on the scantily dressed girl who will rarely ‘protest’. Here, the man himself is to blame as much as is the girl after they succeed in sexualizing our culture, for it really takes two.
To another extent, it appears sexual captivity has undoubtedly affected different socio-economic and ethnic groups in Malawi. The idea of a Malawian girl going out almost nude and engaging in illicit sex being an immoral human being is fast fading into oblivion.
Well, whatever the case, we need to examine our moral standing once again and perhaps strategise to return to our roots. We are moral human beings who can easily navigate away from any sort of immorality. Our change should be for the better not for the worse.
The author is a final year student at Chancellor College, majoring in Literature in English. You may also follow him by visiting www.alickponje.blogspot.com.
For feedback, write to ananiyaalick.ponje@gmail.com
Sometimes in life, driven by circumstances, a human being is supposed to abandon his strong principles and adjust to change for the sake of progress. There is no progress unless one has allowed himself to engage into other ‘innovative’ aspects which were not peculiar to them in the first place.
Change always brings something new; but the most significant thing that counts is assessing what kind of change is morally acceptable. There are instances where change – even if it was not being approved in the first place – gets accepted and becomes an axiom of morality. This is solely because a human being is a social being who needs to adjust according to the dictates of circumstances while not committing an offence against himself or the society within which he lives.
However, still more, sometimes if some kind of change is necessary, but the majority does not hold with it, the minority needs to strategise so as to persuade the majority to adopt the new ‘development’.
In fact, without change, history would be meaningless. It is because humans and nature as a whole go through different levels in their lives that there is the need to preserve that which happened long ago. If that was not the case, it would be just as significant to look at what is happening now, for it would not be any different from what happened yesterday.
Governments change, generations change, natural elements go through processes of mutation and nothing remains the same forever. Above all, the world always changes and nothing in it will remain forever, for every change that it undergoes is a catalyst for changes of everything within it.
Yet in Malawi, it appears some people (pardon my bluntness) are still stuck in the past with so much stubbornness and tradition that to them every kind of change appears to be “a Whiteman’s concern”. These attitudes and behaviour that are characteristic of some Malawians are not conducive for development.
During the transition process from one party system of government to multiparty politics, some people could not just accept that such an aspect in Malawi politics was a very needful thing. They kept on worshipping the former president, the late Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda, and went on to argue that they were not ready “to live without Dr. Banda at the helm.” This was just a manifestation of rigidity to change.
They had gotten so much used to Dr. Banda’s cruel system of governance that it had finally become part of their lives. To them, that which they had lived with for so long was better than something that they were not aware of. Yet, everything about multiparty politics had been advocated for times without number.
They were ‘safe’ in following the culture of ‘nurturing’ what they had instead of adjusting to that necessary change. In other words, they got so much used to the culture of suffering that to them, it was not necessary to have freedom. Such kinds of mindsets are perilous as long as development is concerned.
Sometimes, we take some of the things that would otherwise improve our lives as “those of Westerners” because of a culture of exclusion and self-segregation. It is high time we began to consider adjusting to change. However, scrutiny is always necessary; but stubbornness should never be welcome!
It is mostly true that culture is a powerful human tool for survival, but it is supposed to be a fragile phenomenon. It is supposed to be constantly changing and easily lost because it exists only in our minds. And, therefore, it is only when we change our mindsets that we may adequately develop.
But, what does it tell us about adjusting to change when a girl almost goes nude in public? What does it pumps into the deep recesses of our hearts if a Malawian girl accepts that her humble body be the centre of public attention simply because it is not properly covered? What does it mean for us when Malawians shoot porn movies which are finally uploaded them on the internet? What does it tell us when a man ravishes his own daughter?
Perhaps, all these and many more immoral tragedies rocking Malawi speak volumes about why change has to be always scrutinized before it is accepted. They tell us that there are still some deviants of society who would never adhere to the conventional principles of how human beings are supposed to behave.
That is why an “Action Girl” had to have the pleasure of taking a picture of herself with only a scanty top and a wallet covering her private parts and sent it for publication in the Weekend Times of today. Whether it is for want of money or not, the girl’s action is just disgusting. She may have a right to do whatever she wants, but she has to take to heart that every right remains a right only if it is morally right.
In his book titled ‘At the Altar of Sexual Idolatry’, Steve Gallagher writes and I quote: “Unless you are at least 50-years-old you probably do not know what it is to live in a culture that isn’t obsessed with sex. Prior to the late 60’s, illicit sex was only confined to the seedy underworld or simply non-existent. It was rare for a man watching TV to come across anything racier than a couple kissing or a vague suggesting comment. Pornography addiction amounted to nothing more than a playboy magazine hidden under the bed.”
Steve wrote this with reference to the American society. However, if we are to apply this in the Malawi setting, we may say “at the beginning the second millennium” instead of “prior to the late 60’s” because issues of sex and pornography rocked Malawian societies first during the period.
Now, it appears we are living in the deep recesses of a dangerously sexualized society; a society that has put sex as the overriding passion of human survival. It is a society that has completely lost its values. Human wisdom has been utterly poisoned and those who advocate for a return to our roots lack all conviction. In regards to morality, our humble nation, is heading towards a horrible ‘head-on collision’ unless positive change is effected immediately.
Now there are social sites like Facebook, Mxit, Waplog and many more. The sites which connect people from different parts of the world have become places where youths think they can express their sexual desires and meet people whom they can interact with sexually.
In most cases of pornography, men are the ones who mostly appear to ‘institute’ everything due to the Malawian tradition that a woman can rarely propose to a man. This is argued against the background of the fact that women are mostly the ones who entice and lure men. Coupled with the nude pictures of women which addicted men may view, like that of the Action Girl, is the skinny dressing of most contemporary girls.
While a man will go out during hot weather like the one Malawi is experiencing putting on a short and a vest, a girl will find an opportunity of exposing herself by putting on ‘classy’ clothes like low-cut blouses which, as if the fact that they are low-cut is not enough harm already, do not even cover up the navel. Nowadays, most young girls simply understand that if they have to be noticed (by men, of course) they have to be scantily dressed.
Now, a man who might have spent a lot of time thinking of how to act out his lust will immediately ‘pounce’ on the scantily dressed girl who will rarely ‘protest’. Here, the man himself is to blame as much as is the girl after they succeed in sexualizing our culture, for it really takes two.
To another extent, it appears sexual captivity has undoubtedly affected different socio-economic and ethnic groups in Malawi. The idea of a Malawian girl going out almost nude and engaging in illicit sex being an immoral human being is fast fading into oblivion.
Well, whatever the case, we need to examine our moral standing once again and perhaps strategise to return to our roots. We are moral human beings who can easily navigate away from any sort of immorality. Our change should be for the better not for the worse.
The author is a final year student at Chancellor College, majoring in Literature in English. You may also follow him by visiting www.alickponje.blogspot.com.
For feedback, write to ananiyaalick.ponje@gmail.com
The Cost of Our Incuriousity
If you are a very curious personality that never lets anything suspicious pass you without delving into its progress, you might have discovered that we Malawians are a very incurious breed of humanity. Oftentimes, we do not care to raise our suspicion in suspicious situations, and the result is that things finally get out of hand.
It was reported sometime back that government was losing more than K2 billion annually in payments issued to ghost workers. Such an amount should in a way have raised some suspicion in the hearts of the authorities long before this year.
The fact that the Ministry of Education tops all ministries when it comes to vacancies clearly tells us that most schools in this country do not have enough teachers. The direct implication is that it shouldn’t have been very difficult for the authorities to discover after many years later that most of the teachers that have been receiving their “salaries” do not in fact exist.
There are inspectors that visit schools on a routine basis and report to the District Education Managers (DEM), and in normal circumstances, these inspectors were supposed to know that the list of serving teachers in their jurisdiction is not proportional to the list of teachers who get their salaries at the end of the month.
Or if this does not concern the inspectors much, the DEM was supposed to know that the amount of money that his office receives as teachers’ salaries is far much more than the ‘legitimate’ one. At least, we cannot expect the DEM not to be aware of how many serving teachers are there in his area of jurisdiction, unless we believe the DEM is a very incurious individual who does not have time to analyse everything taking place in his area of authority.
Now, the top most authorities in the Ministry of Education, and of course, other ministries where ghost workers were prevalent, should be curious enough to finally find the actual culprits in the whole ghost workers scam so that the case does not rest forever like many others involving officials in higher places in government departments.
Many people commit many criminal offenses within government departments, but it appears the problem remains that those who would bring them to book are not very curious individuals such that they either ignore the crimes or just quash them as trivial altogether.
It has been reported before that government has lost thousands of hectors of trees in the famous Chikangawa Forest to bushfires. The loss of the trees means millions of kwacha have been lost to bushfires. Yet, the funniest thing remains that the issue of Chikangawa Forest being destroyed by unscrupulous individuals only got into the public domain then finally rested to its hilt.
It was even alleged that the people who started the bushfires were some disgruntled workers in the same forest. And the question now is: what happened after the allegations? Was anybody arrested and charged with any criminal offense? It appears no one was. Are we such an incurious breed that we fail to find solutions to situations that have been partly revealed already?
Then we have the government forests in the hills of Chikhwawa which are constantly on fire. Are the authorities at the forestry departments so incurious that they do not care who sets these forests on fire? If so, then we should not have trust in these departments.
All in all, the point remains that it seems that many government departments are so incurious about things happening in their areas of authority such that a lot of damage gets made and a lot of money gets lost while the culprits remain scot-free. Such is the price we are paying for being such a very incurious breed.
It was reported sometime back that government was losing more than K2 billion annually in payments issued to ghost workers. Such an amount should in a way have raised some suspicion in the hearts of the authorities long before this year.
The fact that the Ministry of Education tops all ministries when it comes to vacancies clearly tells us that most schools in this country do not have enough teachers. The direct implication is that it shouldn’t have been very difficult for the authorities to discover after many years later that most of the teachers that have been receiving their “salaries” do not in fact exist.
There are inspectors that visit schools on a routine basis and report to the District Education Managers (DEM), and in normal circumstances, these inspectors were supposed to know that the list of serving teachers in their jurisdiction is not proportional to the list of teachers who get their salaries at the end of the month.
Or if this does not concern the inspectors much, the DEM was supposed to know that the amount of money that his office receives as teachers’ salaries is far much more than the ‘legitimate’ one. At least, we cannot expect the DEM not to be aware of how many serving teachers are there in his area of jurisdiction, unless we believe the DEM is a very incurious individual who does not have time to analyse everything taking place in his area of authority.
Now, the top most authorities in the Ministry of Education, and of course, other ministries where ghost workers were prevalent, should be curious enough to finally find the actual culprits in the whole ghost workers scam so that the case does not rest forever like many others involving officials in higher places in government departments.
Many people commit many criminal offenses within government departments, but it appears the problem remains that those who would bring them to book are not very curious individuals such that they either ignore the crimes or just quash them as trivial altogether.
It has been reported before that government has lost thousands of hectors of trees in the famous Chikangawa Forest to bushfires. The loss of the trees means millions of kwacha have been lost to bushfires. Yet, the funniest thing remains that the issue of Chikangawa Forest being destroyed by unscrupulous individuals only got into the public domain then finally rested to its hilt.
It was even alleged that the people who started the bushfires were some disgruntled workers in the same forest. And the question now is: what happened after the allegations? Was anybody arrested and charged with any criminal offense? It appears no one was. Are we such an incurious breed that we fail to find solutions to situations that have been partly revealed already?
Then we have the government forests in the hills of Chikhwawa which are constantly on fire. Are the authorities at the forestry departments so incurious that they do not care who sets these forests on fire? If so, then we should not have trust in these departments.
All in all, the point remains that it seems that many government departments are so incurious about things happening in their areas of authority such that a lot of damage gets made and a lot of money gets lost while the culprits remain scot-free. Such is the price we are paying for being such a very incurious breed.
Are We In An Era of Sexual Immorality?
In his book titled ‘At the Altar of Sexual Idolatry’, Steve Gallagher writes and I quote: “Unless you are at least 50-years-old you probably do not know what it is to live in a culture that isn’t obsessed with sex. Prior to the late 60’s, illicit sex was only confined to the seedy underworld or simply non-existent.
“It was rare for a man watching TV to come across anything racier than a couple kissing or a vague suggesting comment. Pornography addiction amounted to nothing more than a playboy magazine hidden under the bed.”
Steve wrote this with reference to the American society. However, if we are to apply this in the Malawi setting, we may say “at the beginning the second millennium” instead of “prior to the late 60’s” because issues of sex and pornography rocked Malawian societies first during the period.
Now, it appears we are living in the deep recesses of a dangerously sexualized society; a society that has put sex as the overriding passion of human survival. It is a society that has completely lost its values. Human wisdom has been utterly poisoned and those who advocate for a return to our roots lack all conviction.
You will be shocked to the core should you ‘accidentally’ bump into someone’s office without knocking. You will find them busy minimizing or simply cancelling a number of pornographic sites on their computer.
Instead of workers utilizing the internet to maximize the effectiveness of their respective jobs, most of them hunch over their computers staring at nude pictures of members of the opposite sex. One wonders what sort of citizens they are to be when they leave their workplaces and infiltrate different societies.
In regards to morality, our humble nation, is heading towards a horrible ‘head-on collision’ unless change is effected immediately.
Now there are social cites which connect people from different parts of the world and they have become a place where youths think they can express their sexual desires and meet people whom they can interact with sexually.
Steve Gallagher continues to explain: “For many, the powerful human drive for sex becomes the overriding passion of life. Kept in its proper place, sex is a marvelous means for a married couple to express their love to each other. However, when a person begins to indulge in some form of illicit sex, this passion can quickly get out of control.”
This is vindicated by different pornographic scandals that have taken place right here in Malawi. There are many examples of pornographic scandals that should obviously have caught the eye of stakeholders that advocate for high levels of morality only to be left underlying.
In most cases of pornography, men are the ones who mostly appear to ‘institute’ everything due to the Malawian tradition that a woman can rarely propose to a man. This is argued against the background of the fact that women are mostly the ones who entice and lure men. Coupled with the nude pictures of women which addicted men may view on their ‘screens’ is the skinny dressing of most contemporary women.
While a man will go out during hot weather putting on a short and a vest, a girl will find an opportunity of exposing herself by putting on ‘classy’ clothes like low-cut blouses which, as if the fact that they are low-cut is not enough harm already, do not even cover up the navel. They will also put on skimpy jeans or miniskirts that barely cover their thighs.
Nowadays, most young girls simply understand that if they have to be noticed (by men, of course) they have to be scantily dressed. Now, a man who might have spent a lot of time thinking of how to act out his lust will immediately ‘pounce’ on the scantily dressed girl who will rarely ‘protest’.
To another extent, it appears sexual captivity has undoubtedly affected different socio-economic and ethnic groups in Malawi. The idea of a person engaging in illicit sex being an immoral human being is fast fading into oblivion. In fact, the very same people who are sexualizing our culture are accorded so much respect because they are seen to be ‘men or women enough’.
The duty of laws appears to be non-existent. The fact that there are no direct laws to govern issues of internet pornography also contributes towards the sexualizing of our culture.
The only clear laws that are there govern the distribution of pornographic materials not the ‘shooting’, hence it appears there are no defined punishments to mete on pornographic actors. This is the government’s worst undoing.
The obvious reason for the absence of the laws is that government never thought incidents of pornography would have Malawians themselves directly involved. And they had to wait at least for things to get out of hand, which is indeed happening now.
“It was rare for a man watching TV to come across anything racier than a couple kissing or a vague suggesting comment. Pornography addiction amounted to nothing more than a playboy magazine hidden under the bed.”
Steve wrote this with reference to the American society. However, if we are to apply this in the Malawi setting, we may say “at the beginning the second millennium” instead of “prior to the late 60’s” because issues of sex and pornography rocked Malawian societies first during the period.
Now, it appears we are living in the deep recesses of a dangerously sexualized society; a society that has put sex as the overriding passion of human survival. It is a society that has completely lost its values. Human wisdom has been utterly poisoned and those who advocate for a return to our roots lack all conviction.
You will be shocked to the core should you ‘accidentally’ bump into someone’s office without knocking. You will find them busy minimizing or simply cancelling a number of pornographic sites on their computer.
Instead of workers utilizing the internet to maximize the effectiveness of their respective jobs, most of them hunch over their computers staring at nude pictures of members of the opposite sex. One wonders what sort of citizens they are to be when they leave their workplaces and infiltrate different societies.
In regards to morality, our humble nation, is heading towards a horrible ‘head-on collision’ unless change is effected immediately.
Now there are social cites which connect people from different parts of the world and they have become a place where youths think they can express their sexual desires and meet people whom they can interact with sexually.
Steve Gallagher continues to explain: “For many, the powerful human drive for sex becomes the overriding passion of life. Kept in its proper place, sex is a marvelous means for a married couple to express their love to each other. However, when a person begins to indulge in some form of illicit sex, this passion can quickly get out of control.”
This is vindicated by different pornographic scandals that have taken place right here in Malawi. There are many examples of pornographic scandals that should obviously have caught the eye of stakeholders that advocate for high levels of morality only to be left underlying.
In most cases of pornography, men are the ones who mostly appear to ‘institute’ everything due to the Malawian tradition that a woman can rarely propose to a man. This is argued against the background of the fact that women are mostly the ones who entice and lure men. Coupled with the nude pictures of women which addicted men may view on their ‘screens’ is the skinny dressing of most contemporary women.
While a man will go out during hot weather putting on a short and a vest, a girl will find an opportunity of exposing herself by putting on ‘classy’ clothes like low-cut blouses which, as if the fact that they are low-cut is not enough harm already, do not even cover up the navel. They will also put on skimpy jeans or miniskirts that barely cover their thighs.
Nowadays, most young girls simply understand that if they have to be noticed (by men, of course) they have to be scantily dressed. Now, a man who might have spent a lot of time thinking of how to act out his lust will immediately ‘pounce’ on the scantily dressed girl who will rarely ‘protest’.
To another extent, it appears sexual captivity has undoubtedly affected different socio-economic and ethnic groups in Malawi. The idea of a person engaging in illicit sex being an immoral human being is fast fading into oblivion. In fact, the very same people who are sexualizing our culture are accorded so much respect because they are seen to be ‘men or women enough’.
The duty of laws appears to be non-existent. The fact that there are no direct laws to govern issues of internet pornography also contributes towards the sexualizing of our culture.
The only clear laws that are there govern the distribution of pornographic materials not the ‘shooting’, hence it appears there are no defined punishments to mete on pornographic actors. This is the government’s worst undoing.
The obvious reason for the absence of the laws is that government never thought incidents of pornography would have Malawians themselves directly involved. And they had to wait at least for things to get out of hand, which is indeed happening now.
Sending a Message of Suffering
Nanzikambe goes socio-political in 'I Will Marry When I Want'
It is on rare occasions that Nanzikambe Theatre Arts Group disappoints when they perform on stage. Their performances are usually perfectly set; deeply thoughtful thematically; and just so touching, to crown it all. They seem to be stubbornly treading in the imaginary cornerstones of rebuking, entertaining and informing.
And last Sunday, August 14, the group lived up to the people’s expectations when they performed a contextualized adaptation of Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s I Will Marry When I Want in the Great Hall at Chancellor College. The play was adapted for the Malawian setting by Mphatso Chidothe.
However, the idea of African time being out of touch with reality where it does not follow the rules of the clock was once more vindicated when the play which was slated to start at 7:00 pm only got rolling about 40 minutes later. This seems to have suddenly become an axiom of morality: it is rare for performances – whether music shows or plays – to start on or just in time.
As time approached 7 pm, the stage was still being set; a subtle image of a house, with all necessary props in place. With the adorable lighting, the final stage set was a marvel to behold. And on it, the actors seemed to feel like that was the only place where they would forever belong.
They neglected the feeling that it was just an idealistic depiction; but embraced the notion of celebrated actors – that while on the stage, one must agree that he is the character James, even if he is known as Marko elsewhere.
Those who have read or watched the original play must have initially struggled to come to terms with the fact that the adaptation would make sense in the Malawian context, especially considering the fact that it was written more than thirty years ago. But it was only a few minutes into the play that they, like the rest of the audience, could hardly resist the impulse to applaud the actors – or perhaps, the ‘adaptor’ – for the well-contextualized performance.
The audience which was only around 100 people was unusually quiet and only applauded intermittently, and at the end they seemed to be mutually satisfied that their monies had not been spent in vain. The silence among the audience was not that the play was lackluster, but because it searched earnestly for some food for thought.
Themes exploring modern life – be it social or political – are dominating current Malawian literature. Talk of short stories, poems, essays, analyses – they seldom tackle other thematic expression that are not linked to politics or social lives of modern day man.
And Nanzikambe too has to tackle the same in I Will Marry When I Want. In the play, there is a poor family whose breadwinner, Jonathan Malata, played by Henry Mtalika, works for a rich man Chinakanaka taken onto stage by Jeremiah Mwaungulu.
Just like in the original play, the adapted version doesn’t deviate from the theme of exploitation where the rich exploit the poor where the poor offer the whole production while the rich own the production to such an extent that the poor are treated “like dogs”.
Chinakanaka, who in the play is a symbol of the rich, uses everything to make sure he makes money for himself. He even uses religion where he propagates the popular message that “blessed are the poor, for they shall inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.” He and his rich colleague Dayiton Kamkwamba (played by Noah Bulambo) even reach the point of urging Malata to hold a church wedding so that he should be “accepted in the Kingdom of God”.
The wedding results in Malata losing his piece of land which is confiscated after he fails to repay a bank load. And, ironically, the bank has Chinakanaka himself as the top most boss, which implies he might have shares in it, or might still own the whole of it altogether. Exploitation is further seen where Chinakanaka’s son gets Malata’s daughter Chisomo, acted by Otooli Masanza, pregnant, but he has his father’s backing when he refuses to marry her.
Towards the end, Malata and his fellow labourers come together to “bang heads” so as to come out of the suffering they are rolling in. The Marxist notion of the lower class resorting to violence against the upper class seems to become prevalent as the play approaches the end.
However, the violence seems to be just in the thoughts of the lower class as there is no visible action taken against the ruling class. Perhaps the brainstorming is an important threshold towards the emancipation of the exploited.
The contextualized adaptation of the play comes live again when it tackles modern social-political and economic issues currently rocking Malawi. It makes sense to assume that Chidothe, the man who adapted the play, gave the actors enough leeway to improvise as much as they can.
This was vindicated when in the Great Hall the actors did not fail to tackle issues of increasing cost of living necessitated by exorbitant taxes. Malata complains to his wife, acted by Flora Suya, that in the past K50 would buy a lot of foodstuffs, while now it isn’t even enough for a bottle of cooking oil and some salt.
During the performance, interludes which were generally in forms of songs, also explicitly exposed the exploitation of the poor. However, to enhance the notion of exploitation, there were also religious songs which seemed to woo the poor into religion.
Kambombo Mumba (acted by Misheck Mzumara) also takes a swipe at the inability of legislators to consider the plight of poor Malawians. “Tenancy in Malawi is modern day slavery. Landlords exploit tenants. The tenancy bill hasn’t been tabled for over five years now. Officials don’t care because they are the beneficiaries. They own estates and exploit tenants,” bemoans Mumba in the play.
As though trying to take part in the current struggle Malawians are engulfed in where they are demanding government to address a number of problems they are facing, the play explores the gone days when people were detained, but still fought on till they succeeded.
Apart from the dominant theme of exploitation, the play also tackles emancipation and heroism. Mumba argues that real freedom fighters are not enjoying while those who were not here when the battle for freedom was being fought are the ones who are enjoying.
During the performance, the audience was generally being driven from a thoughtful and pitiful mood to a hilarious one. It was as if the director had deliberately designed the play that way. Take this instance: in a calm voice, an actor bemoans his poverty and says: “These people just use religion to exploit us. How come they say we the poor are blessed, while they themselves are accumulating wealth for themselves?” He goes on to say: “a leader who doesn’t listen is not a leader at all.”
Then afterwards, another actor says teachers are receiving their salaries on the 35th of the month. Well, it is a pathetic situation, but then it provided a moment of laughter for the audience.
After the end of the “multi-thematic” play, the audience seems to be mutually satisfied that their money had not been spent in vain. The students, who had to party ways with K500 praised Nanzikambe for the play.
“As usual, the guys did a very good job. The play lasted more than three hours but we sat glued to the stage to make sure we did not miss anything,” said James Munyapa, a fourth year student at Chanco.
I Will Marry When I Want is on a national tour where the group will perform it in different cities and districts. From Zomba, they are taking it to Mangochi, Balaka, Mchinji, Lilongwe, Salima, Nkhatabay, Mzuzu, Rumphi and Karonga. The people in these places should be prepared to be treated to an adorable feast of art.
It is on rare occasions that Nanzikambe Theatre Arts Group disappoints when they perform on stage. Their performances are usually perfectly set; deeply thoughtful thematically; and just so touching, to crown it all. They seem to be stubbornly treading in the imaginary cornerstones of rebuking, entertaining and informing.
And last Sunday, August 14, the group lived up to the people’s expectations when they performed a contextualized adaptation of Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s I Will Marry When I Want in the Great Hall at Chancellor College. The play was adapted for the Malawian setting by Mphatso Chidothe.
However, the idea of African time being out of touch with reality where it does not follow the rules of the clock was once more vindicated when the play which was slated to start at 7:00 pm only got rolling about 40 minutes later. This seems to have suddenly become an axiom of morality: it is rare for performances – whether music shows or plays – to start on or just in time.
As time approached 7 pm, the stage was still being set; a subtle image of a house, with all necessary props in place. With the adorable lighting, the final stage set was a marvel to behold. And on it, the actors seemed to feel like that was the only place where they would forever belong.
They neglected the feeling that it was just an idealistic depiction; but embraced the notion of celebrated actors – that while on the stage, one must agree that he is the character James, even if he is known as Marko elsewhere.
Those who have read or watched the original play must have initially struggled to come to terms with the fact that the adaptation would make sense in the Malawian context, especially considering the fact that it was written more than thirty years ago. But it was only a few minutes into the play that they, like the rest of the audience, could hardly resist the impulse to applaud the actors – or perhaps, the ‘adaptor’ – for the well-contextualized performance.
The audience which was only around 100 people was unusually quiet and only applauded intermittently, and at the end they seemed to be mutually satisfied that their monies had not been spent in vain. The silence among the audience was not that the play was lackluster, but because it searched earnestly for some food for thought.
Themes exploring modern life – be it social or political – are dominating current Malawian literature. Talk of short stories, poems, essays, analyses – they seldom tackle other thematic expression that are not linked to politics or social lives of modern day man.
And Nanzikambe too has to tackle the same in I Will Marry When I Want. In the play, there is a poor family whose breadwinner, Jonathan Malata, played by Henry Mtalika, works for a rich man Chinakanaka taken onto stage by Jeremiah Mwaungulu.
Just like in the original play, the adapted version doesn’t deviate from the theme of exploitation where the rich exploit the poor where the poor offer the whole production while the rich own the production to such an extent that the poor are treated “like dogs”.
Chinakanaka, who in the play is a symbol of the rich, uses everything to make sure he makes money for himself. He even uses religion where he propagates the popular message that “blessed are the poor, for they shall inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.” He and his rich colleague Dayiton Kamkwamba (played by Noah Bulambo) even reach the point of urging Malata to hold a church wedding so that he should be “accepted in the Kingdom of God”.
The wedding results in Malata losing his piece of land which is confiscated after he fails to repay a bank load. And, ironically, the bank has Chinakanaka himself as the top most boss, which implies he might have shares in it, or might still own the whole of it altogether. Exploitation is further seen where Chinakanaka’s son gets Malata’s daughter Chisomo, acted by Otooli Masanza, pregnant, but he has his father’s backing when he refuses to marry her.
Towards the end, Malata and his fellow labourers come together to “bang heads” so as to come out of the suffering they are rolling in. The Marxist notion of the lower class resorting to violence against the upper class seems to become prevalent as the play approaches the end.
However, the violence seems to be just in the thoughts of the lower class as there is no visible action taken against the ruling class. Perhaps the brainstorming is an important threshold towards the emancipation of the exploited.
The contextualized adaptation of the play comes live again when it tackles modern social-political and economic issues currently rocking Malawi. It makes sense to assume that Chidothe, the man who adapted the play, gave the actors enough leeway to improvise as much as they can.
This was vindicated when in the Great Hall the actors did not fail to tackle issues of increasing cost of living necessitated by exorbitant taxes. Malata complains to his wife, acted by Flora Suya, that in the past K50 would buy a lot of foodstuffs, while now it isn’t even enough for a bottle of cooking oil and some salt.
During the performance, interludes which were generally in forms of songs, also explicitly exposed the exploitation of the poor. However, to enhance the notion of exploitation, there were also religious songs which seemed to woo the poor into religion.
Kambombo Mumba (acted by Misheck Mzumara) also takes a swipe at the inability of legislators to consider the plight of poor Malawians. “Tenancy in Malawi is modern day slavery. Landlords exploit tenants. The tenancy bill hasn’t been tabled for over five years now. Officials don’t care because they are the beneficiaries. They own estates and exploit tenants,” bemoans Mumba in the play.
As though trying to take part in the current struggle Malawians are engulfed in where they are demanding government to address a number of problems they are facing, the play explores the gone days when people were detained, but still fought on till they succeeded.
Apart from the dominant theme of exploitation, the play also tackles emancipation and heroism. Mumba argues that real freedom fighters are not enjoying while those who were not here when the battle for freedom was being fought are the ones who are enjoying.
During the performance, the audience was generally being driven from a thoughtful and pitiful mood to a hilarious one. It was as if the director had deliberately designed the play that way. Take this instance: in a calm voice, an actor bemoans his poverty and says: “These people just use religion to exploit us. How come they say we the poor are blessed, while they themselves are accumulating wealth for themselves?” He goes on to say: “a leader who doesn’t listen is not a leader at all.”
Then afterwards, another actor says teachers are receiving their salaries on the 35th of the month. Well, it is a pathetic situation, but then it provided a moment of laughter for the audience.
After the end of the “multi-thematic” play, the audience seems to be mutually satisfied that their money had not been spent in vain. The students, who had to party ways with K500 praised Nanzikambe for the play.
“As usual, the guys did a very good job. The play lasted more than three hours but we sat glued to the stage to make sure we did not miss anything,” said James Munyapa, a fourth year student at Chanco.
I Will Marry When I Want is on a national tour where the group will perform it in different cities and districts. From Zomba, they are taking it to Mangochi, Balaka, Mchinji, Lilongwe, Salima, Nkhatabay, Mzuzu, Rumphi and Karonga. The people in these places should be prepared to be treated to an adorable feast of art.
Monday, September 12, 2011
No Fooling on Fools' Day
Author's note: this article was first published in The Sunday Times
April 1, the day that is dedicated to “unreasonable acts, jokes and all foolishness”, has been losing its sensation in recent years. In the past, the day was marked by the commission of funny or humorous jokes of varying complexity. People would fool each other to the point where relationships strained. But that was just for a short time: it was dedicated to “foolish acts” and long at last, people would understand each other.
This year, when information was being spread on social sites, before it reached the mainstream media, that Chancellor College and the Malawi Polytechnic had been closed, people thought it was just one of those Fools’ Day rumblings. But it wasn’t; students were given two hours to vacate the colleges.
But, to Makhumbo Munthali, a fourth year student at Chanco, there was more tragedy attached to April 1 than the closure of his school, as he woke up in a prison cell where he had been dumped the previous day.
“It was really traumatizing. Finding yourself in a police cell during that period was the last thing one could think of,” he recounts.
“It was around 12:30pm [31 March] when I, together with my roommate and others, unexpectedly found ourselves in a Police land cruiser off to Zomba Police Station where we were to spend some considerable number of days according to the authorities,” says Munthali.
He adds that despite being an ardent sympathizer of the academic freedom fight, he never at any point imagined that he would be arrested; and “not just an ordinarily ethically-justified arrest, but one coupled with brutality”.
It is the nature of life that luck sometimes dawns upon those who rarely seek it. During the students’ protests that culminated in the closure of Chanco and Poly, it was usually those who were not involved in the demonstrations who were arrested by the police. And on Fools’ Day eve, the trend was once more vindicated. Munthali and four others were arrested in the comfort of their dormitory rooms where they thought they were safe from the bullets, the teargas and the police cell.
“On that day, I had made a stern deliberate decision to remain in my room so that I could concentrate on my dissertation proposal and assignment,” rekindles Munthali. “I chose to confine myself within the walls of my room where I thought I was safe, bearing in mind that the Police or any military were prohibited from invading the hostels. I was mistaken; a cell at Zomba Police Station was beckoning.”
In retrospect, he shares that at around 11:30am, about six policemen, dressed in their uniforms, invaded his room after breaking the locked door and proceeded to severely beat him, his roommate and his roommate’s girlfriend who were arrested together with him.
“I started bleeding on the right side of my eye in the process, and such bleeding persisted even when we arrived in the cell. Thank God a Good Samaritan (one of the Police Officers at the station) noticed my bad condition and arranged for our transport to Zomba Central Hospital where after treatment I was taken back to the cell – to spend the night,” he relates.
Luckily, the arrested students were released the following day on April Fools Day in spite of earlier verbal threats that they would spend some days in the cell. Of course, the threats had not been just one of those Fools’ Day jokes, but well-calculated ones, as the students were to see later.
Munthali further recounts that an earlier communication from one highly-ranked official from the Eastern Region Police Headquarters made available to the arrested students while he was at the hospital, prompted him “to burst into a prayer of declaration”.
“This normally highly esteemed official, who also boasted of having passed through University of Malawi corridors, told us that we were going to spend several days in the cell. In fact, such sentiments were indeed to be proven to be true the following day when the state prosecutor bluntly asked the court not to grant us bail for this would tamper with their investigations. He instead asked the court to order us to be in police custody for the next seven days pending investigations,” says Munthali.
The arrested students, who were 19 altogether, were all charged with conduct likely to cause breach of peace, and unlawful assembly. Whatever these mean, it is hard to assess how a student arrested in his own room would cause breach of peace or be assembling unlawfully, wonders Munthali. Was this just another intent of Fool’s Day?
He adds that despite enduring harsh conditions in the cell, they had some lighter moments of fun because of the creative jokes which the inmates shared.
He sums up by observing that with diversity in terms of districts of origin, experience and fields of study – where the arrested students were well split over all three regions as there were students from Karonga, Mchinji and Thyolo, just to mention a few – “the cell offered the best platform for critical and analytical discourse over some political and socio-economic issues affecting Malawi”.
“Nevertheless, in all these experiences we saw the mighty liberating hand of God. God was indeed omnipresent amongst us, giving us the much-needed hope, strength and comfort,” he says. “The big lesson that I learnt in all this is that one ought to be still and just wait upon the Lord when in the midst of storms.”
April 1, the day that is dedicated to “unreasonable acts, jokes and all foolishness”, has been losing its sensation in recent years. In the past, the day was marked by the commission of funny or humorous jokes of varying complexity. People would fool each other to the point where relationships strained. But that was just for a short time: it was dedicated to “foolish acts” and long at last, people would understand each other.
This year, when information was being spread on social sites, before it reached the mainstream media, that Chancellor College and the Malawi Polytechnic had been closed, people thought it was just one of those Fools’ Day rumblings. But it wasn’t; students were given two hours to vacate the colleges.
But, to Makhumbo Munthali, a fourth year student at Chanco, there was more tragedy attached to April 1 than the closure of his school, as he woke up in a prison cell where he had been dumped the previous day.
“It was really traumatizing. Finding yourself in a police cell during that period was the last thing one could think of,” he recounts.
“It was around 12:30pm [31 March] when I, together with my roommate and others, unexpectedly found ourselves in a Police land cruiser off to Zomba Police Station where we were to spend some considerable number of days according to the authorities,” says Munthali.
He adds that despite being an ardent sympathizer of the academic freedom fight, he never at any point imagined that he would be arrested; and “not just an ordinarily ethically-justified arrest, but one coupled with brutality”.
It is the nature of life that luck sometimes dawns upon those who rarely seek it. During the students’ protests that culminated in the closure of Chanco and Poly, it was usually those who were not involved in the demonstrations who were arrested by the police. And on Fools’ Day eve, the trend was once more vindicated. Munthali and four others were arrested in the comfort of their dormitory rooms where they thought they were safe from the bullets, the teargas and the police cell.
“On that day, I had made a stern deliberate decision to remain in my room so that I could concentrate on my dissertation proposal and assignment,” rekindles Munthali. “I chose to confine myself within the walls of my room where I thought I was safe, bearing in mind that the Police or any military were prohibited from invading the hostels. I was mistaken; a cell at Zomba Police Station was beckoning.”
In retrospect, he shares that at around 11:30am, about six policemen, dressed in their uniforms, invaded his room after breaking the locked door and proceeded to severely beat him, his roommate and his roommate’s girlfriend who were arrested together with him.
“I started bleeding on the right side of my eye in the process, and such bleeding persisted even when we arrived in the cell. Thank God a Good Samaritan (one of the Police Officers at the station) noticed my bad condition and arranged for our transport to Zomba Central Hospital where after treatment I was taken back to the cell – to spend the night,” he relates.
Luckily, the arrested students were released the following day on April Fools Day in spite of earlier verbal threats that they would spend some days in the cell. Of course, the threats had not been just one of those Fools’ Day jokes, but well-calculated ones, as the students were to see later.
Munthali further recounts that an earlier communication from one highly-ranked official from the Eastern Region Police Headquarters made available to the arrested students while he was at the hospital, prompted him “to burst into a prayer of declaration”.
“This normally highly esteemed official, who also boasted of having passed through University of Malawi corridors, told us that we were going to spend several days in the cell. In fact, such sentiments were indeed to be proven to be true the following day when the state prosecutor bluntly asked the court not to grant us bail for this would tamper with their investigations. He instead asked the court to order us to be in police custody for the next seven days pending investigations,” says Munthali.
The arrested students, who were 19 altogether, were all charged with conduct likely to cause breach of peace, and unlawful assembly. Whatever these mean, it is hard to assess how a student arrested in his own room would cause breach of peace or be assembling unlawfully, wonders Munthali. Was this just another intent of Fool’s Day?
He adds that despite enduring harsh conditions in the cell, they had some lighter moments of fun because of the creative jokes which the inmates shared.
He sums up by observing that with diversity in terms of districts of origin, experience and fields of study – where the arrested students were well split over all three regions as there were students from Karonga, Mchinji and Thyolo, just to mention a few – “the cell offered the best platform for critical and analytical discourse over some political and socio-economic issues affecting Malawi”.
“Nevertheless, in all these experiences we saw the mighty liberating hand of God. God was indeed omnipresent amongst us, giving us the much-needed hope, strength and comfort,” he says. “The big lesson that I learnt in all this is that one ought to be still and just wait upon the Lord when in the midst of storms.”
Chanco Impasse: A Case of Peculiar Priorities
Leadership is not a formula or a program; it is a human activity that comes from the heart and considers the hearts of others – Lance Secretan
Malawi’s economy is stumbling; this is something the world knows now. Government is relying on its own citizens to bail itself out of this crisis, and untold burdens are pressing down on our lives. Innumerable voices of reason warned president Bingu wa Mutharika that the economic path he had taken wasn’t Malawi’s favourite, but the technocrat – who boasts an honorary professorial title from China – used all sorts of undiplomatic terms in very infamous counterattacks.
Practicing economists offered detailed options, but Mutharika chose to be the all-knowing man who shouldn’t take suggestions from “lesser humans”. Now, the Reserve Bank devalued our currency by 10 percent without putting into place strategies that would cushion the blow, and according to one Pecks Ligoya, this should not cause us to panic. We should rest on our laurels as prices of the most basic commodities are going up, taxes have been hiked and more economic tragedies seem inevitably imminent.
In the midst of Malawi’s economic downturn, it is beyond reasonable doubt that we should expect a government that has a world class economist at the helm, to minimize spending, and practice high-level economic prudence.
But Mutharika continues defying this basic prediction. It is as though he is stubbornly crutching his half-revered principle of not moved by predictability. He is Mr. Unpredictable, and that has been debated times without number.
Take this instance: while the whole country was mourning the death of 19 people killed on July 20 in his country, Mutharika was splashing beer parties to vendors and those who chose to drink. He is also on record to have given the vendors money to aid their businesses, something which was construed to be a way of buying their support so that they should side with him.
And those that lost their lives on July 20 must be restless in their graves in the wake of the president’s lack of a humane heart and a job poorly done in paying respect to the departed. It needs not be stressed that it is only an unfeeling leader who can describe the dead as having died in vain.
Yet, it is not only in the areas of condolence and sympathy lessons where Mutharika seems to be poorly performing; in his own field of expertise, the president has exhibited a real spirit of carelessness. A practical economist is explicitly mean with spending. He cannot allow money to go down the drain where nothing tangible is happening.
Mutharika knows classes have not yet resumed at Chancellor College, University of Malawi’s biggest institution. He also knows that millions of our devalued currency continue being spent in protracted legal battles between Chanco Academic Staff Union (Ccasu) and the University Council, in salaries paid to all Chanco employees, and more principally, to Sunbird Catering who run the college cafeteria.
And what is the president doing? Nothing! Or maybe he is just monitoring the situation with keen interest. That millions of kwacha are being spent on this period of non-productivity perhaps doesn’t ring a bell in the president’s head. And whether seeing more than 2000 university students wandering about in Zomba without looking forward to their graduation day, doesn’t call for a humanitarian action from the president, is the question Malawians have been asking.
It is difficult to understand why Mutharika has chosen to honour very peculiar priorities in the Chanco impasse. At the expense of Malawi, the president is proudly watching Council stick to their guns that Jessie Kabwila-Kapasula, Franz Amin, Garton Kamchedzera and Blessings Chinsinga should remain fired.
At the expense of more than 2000 students – who perfectly engineered and calculated their way into this institution of higher learning – Mutharika is waiting upon the courts’ decision on the ‘fate’ of the four lecturers. Yet, he pretty sure knows that court cases in Malawi have the tendency of taking forever before they are concluded.
At the expense of his own integrity as an academic doctor, the president is silently watching a university college hibernate into a slumber where students’ research projects, which are intended to beef up activities in the corporate world, have stalled for more than half a year now. Whatever Mutharika’s priorities in this impasse are, they must be very peculiar priorities.
There are many popular paradoxes and ironies that have sprouted in the saga. Council and the president are waiting upon the courts to decide on whether Kapasula and company should indeed be fired or not. This categorically implies that these parties have absolute trust that the courts will make a binding decision which should be honoured. Why then can’t they also respect the injunction which was granted by the same courts that the four remain Unima employees?
Council argues that the four were fired because they were not reporting for work. It appears there can be no more explicit legal interpretation of this apart from the ordinary understanding that it implies it was the four alone who were not reporting for work while the rest were.
Mutharika said in his 5 June speech that there would be no casualties in the whole saga and that all court cases should be withdrawn so that some semblance of normalcy could return at Chanco. In a peculiar twist of events, Council appealed against the injunction which was granted against its decision to fire the four. Was the president simply fooling Malawians when he said all court cases should be dropped? Was he just trying to score political points when he announced that there would be no casualties in the saga?
It is difficult to surmise Mutharika’s priorities in this impasse as much as it is to construe his intentions. It is in moments like this where human wisdom should indeed be analysed. Why is it that president Mutharika wants Kapasula and company fired? Should his desire continue holding the whole horde of Chanco students at ransom?
There are those who wonder why the president should be blamed in the impasse when it is Council that is clinging to its decision that the four remain fired. Matter-of-factly, Council are just pawns who are being used to propagate the high-level presidential agenda. Otherwise, if the president ordered that Chanco and the Malawi Polytechnic should reopen on 4 July, what can stop him from ordering Council to drop all the court cases and let Chanco lecturers return to class?
If the president holds the top most position in the university hierarchy, what can stop him from overseeing decisions made by his subjects and come up with a solution where others have failed?
One may say with the courage of their convictions that the president holds the ultimate key to the resumption of classes at Chanco. There is no dispute that the impasse is a dent in Mutharika’s administration, but the question remains: why has the president chosen to respect very peculiar priorities? What type of leadership and administrative skills is he employing in the saga?
There is a question people have been asking all this while: if Council knew that there were some outstanding issues between themselves and Ccasu, why did they go on to reopen the college? It was speculated that they had initially put Chanco reopening on hold until the president threatened to fire all Council members, hence the abrupt reopening – which was announced the same day the students were told to report back to college.
Perhaps, they should use their own reason more than the president’s directives. It should be clear that these academicians understand the situation at Chanco beyond politics. They are making decisions against their consciences simply to save their purses. They pretty well know that if they were making their decisions independent of any political influence, Chanco wouldn’t even have been closed in the first place. The impasse would have been cleared long ago and the lecturers would have returned to class.
But the danger with politicians running the university is that they employ their stubbornness and pride in matters that would be cleared without much ado, simply to show that they have power to do so. They always strive to consolidate their authority even in areas where such acts cannot be adored.
And now politics is being played by Council themselves. They are assimilating with the authority higher than them who tells them what to do and they have no courage to ask why they have to do it.
It is clear that they thought that after reopening the college irrespective of the fact that there were still some outstanding issues, they would mobilize the students to turn against their lecturers. Take this instance: a long, winding, redundant Press Release which Council released in the mainstream media was distributed to Chanco students so that they should “scrutinize it”. Realities on the ground had been twisted to such an extent that the students discovered it and chose to reject the content of the Press Release.
And later, the principal of Chanco who also happens to be a member of the University Council by virtue of his position, urged the students to ‘revolt’ against their teachers when he told them that kufa saferana (Everyman for himself and God for us all). The students rightly construed their principal’s intention and snubbed him. They didn’t go against their lecturers; they just didn’t see any reason to.
Council is desperate for ideas. It seems they have exhausted all the options they had to continue towing the presidential line. But, if they are to remain in their positions, they have to continue doing what they hate – towing the presidential line. But Malawians are eagerly hoping for the day these academicians will rise above the occasion and defy the presidential order and tell the Chanco four to go back to class. Yet, such types of people are hard to find in a society that is ruled by a politician.
And in another exhibition of desperation, Council asked to meet Chanco students’ representatives so that they should discuss a number of issues, perhaps, even those raised in the petition which the students presented to the University Office last Monday. In the petition, the students who had been holding a vigil at the University Office since last Monday only to be blocked three days later, said they would continue doing so until the day they would fully return to class.
The students snubbed Council on the proposed meeting. Perhaps, they were just very right; why would Council choose to involve the students in the discussion without the lecturers who are the principal parties in the whole impasse? It is obvious that, like they had attempted before, Council wanted to bulldoze the students into turning against their lecturers. Otherwise, it is hard to guess what would come out of Council’s meeting with the students which would lead to the resumption of classes at the college.
Heroism is a notion most politicians seldom want to be accorded to others other than themselves. If truth be told, Mutharika doesn’t want Kapasula and company to remain at Chanco because after everything is said and done, they will be construed as the ultimate heroes. This was evident in his 4 June speech where he used phrases like “false pursuit of heroism”.
Yet, while trying to unmake heroes out of the four Chanco lecturers, Mutharika is becoming more infamous. Again, this is where it becomes hard to define his priorities. In any case, they must be very peculiar priorities.
We all know that even if the president is to make a directive that learning should resume at Chanco, he can use the same Council he is using to make sure learning stalls. In this regard, he shouldn’t be afraid of losing morale after having finally “given in”. It will be a bold decision that will finally settle the dust that continues rising at the Zomba-based college.
Otherwise, the kind of political leadership he is employing in the impasse isn’t the best. He can only speak a few words and things will return to normalcy and millions of kwacha will be saved from going down the drain. He must understand that leadership, as Lance Secretan said, is not a formula or a program but rather a human activity that comes from the heart and considers the hearts of others.
He should consider the plight of the students who are at the receiving end of the impasse; he should prioritise those poor parents in the remote areas who are spending the last penny they had on their sons and daughters who have not been to class fully since February. He should take into account numerous voices of reason that have pleaded with him to normalize things at Chanco.
Mutharika should do some soul searching and understand that the greatest of all leaders is he who is willing to follow his people. He holds the key to the resumption of normal teaching and learning at Chanco, and if he himself doesn’t do anything, all other parties involved might just be struggling in vain.
Malawi’s economy is stumbling; this is something the world knows now. Government is relying on its own citizens to bail itself out of this crisis, and untold burdens are pressing down on our lives. Innumerable voices of reason warned president Bingu wa Mutharika that the economic path he had taken wasn’t Malawi’s favourite, but the technocrat – who boasts an honorary professorial title from China – used all sorts of undiplomatic terms in very infamous counterattacks.
Practicing economists offered detailed options, but Mutharika chose to be the all-knowing man who shouldn’t take suggestions from “lesser humans”. Now, the Reserve Bank devalued our currency by 10 percent without putting into place strategies that would cushion the blow, and according to one Pecks Ligoya, this should not cause us to panic. We should rest on our laurels as prices of the most basic commodities are going up, taxes have been hiked and more economic tragedies seem inevitably imminent.
In the midst of Malawi’s economic downturn, it is beyond reasonable doubt that we should expect a government that has a world class economist at the helm, to minimize spending, and practice high-level economic prudence.
But Mutharika continues defying this basic prediction. It is as though he is stubbornly crutching his half-revered principle of not moved by predictability. He is Mr. Unpredictable, and that has been debated times without number.
Take this instance: while the whole country was mourning the death of 19 people killed on July 20 in his country, Mutharika was splashing beer parties to vendors and those who chose to drink. He is also on record to have given the vendors money to aid their businesses, something which was construed to be a way of buying their support so that they should side with him.
And those that lost their lives on July 20 must be restless in their graves in the wake of the president’s lack of a humane heart and a job poorly done in paying respect to the departed. It needs not be stressed that it is only an unfeeling leader who can describe the dead as having died in vain.
Yet, it is not only in the areas of condolence and sympathy lessons where Mutharika seems to be poorly performing; in his own field of expertise, the president has exhibited a real spirit of carelessness. A practical economist is explicitly mean with spending. He cannot allow money to go down the drain where nothing tangible is happening.
Mutharika knows classes have not yet resumed at Chancellor College, University of Malawi’s biggest institution. He also knows that millions of our devalued currency continue being spent in protracted legal battles between Chanco Academic Staff Union (Ccasu) and the University Council, in salaries paid to all Chanco employees, and more principally, to Sunbird Catering who run the college cafeteria.
And what is the president doing? Nothing! Or maybe he is just monitoring the situation with keen interest. That millions of kwacha are being spent on this period of non-productivity perhaps doesn’t ring a bell in the president’s head. And whether seeing more than 2000 university students wandering about in Zomba without looking forward to their graduation day, doesn’t call for a humanitarian action from the president, is the question Malawians have been asking.
It is difficult to understand why Mutharika has chosen to honour very peculiar priorities in the Chanco impasse. At the expense of Malawi, the president is proudly watching Council stick to their guns that Jessie Kabwila-Kapasula, Franz Amin, Garton Kamchedzera and Blessings Chinsinga should remain fired.
At the expense of more than 2000 students – who perfectly engineered and calculated their way into this institution of higher learning – Mutharika is waiting upon the courts’ decision on the ‘fate’ of the four lecturers. Yet, he pretty sure knows that court cases in Malawi have the tendency of taking forever before they are concluded.
At the expense of his own integrity as an academic doctor, the president is silently watching a university college hibernate into a slumber where students’ research projects, which are intended to beef up activities in the corporate world, have stalled for more than half a year now. Whatever Mutharika’s priorities in this impasse are, they must be very peculiar priorities.
There are many popular paradoxes and ironies that have sprouted in the saga. Council and the president are waiting upon the courts to decide on whether Kapasula and company should indeed be fired or not. This categorically implies that these parties have absolute trust that the courts will make a binding decision which should be honoured. Why then can’t they also respect the injunction which was granted by the same courts that the four remain Unima employees?
Council argues that the four were fired because they were not reporting for work. It appears there can be no more explicit legal interpretation of this apart from the ordinary understanding that it implies it was the four alone who were not reporting for work while the rest were.
Mutharika said in his 5 June speech that there would be no casualties in the whole saga and that all court cases should be withdrawn so that some semblance of normalcy could return at Chanco. In a peculiar twist of events, Council appealed against the injunction which was granted against its decision to fire the four. Was the president simply fooling Malawians when he said all court cases should be dropped? Was he just trying to score political points when he announced that there would be no casualties in the saga?
It is difficult to surmise Mutharika’s priorities in this impasse as much as it is to construe his intentions. It is in moments like this where human wisdom should indeed be analysed. Why is it that president Mutharika wants Kapasula and company fired? Should his desire continue holding the whole horde of Chanco students at ransom?
There are those who wonder why the president should be blamed in the impasse when it is Council that is clinging to its decision that the four remain fired. Matter-of-factly, Council are just pawns who are being used to propagate the high-level presidential agenda. Otherwise, if the president ordered that Chanco and the Malawi Polytechnic should reopen on 4 July, what can stop him from ordering Council to drop all the court cases and let Chanco lecturers return to class?
If the president holds the top most position in the university hierarchy, what can stop him from overseeing decisions made by his subjects and come up with a solution where others have failed?
One may say with the courage of their convictions that the president holds the ultimate key to the resumption of classes at Chanco. There is no dispute that the impasse is a dent in Mutharika’s administration, but the question remains: why has the president chosen to respect very peculiar priorities? What type of leadership and administrative skills is he employing in the saga?
There is a question people have been asking all this while: if Council knew that there were some outstanding issues between themselves and Ccasu, why did they go on to reopen the college? It was speculated that they had initially put Chanco reopening on hold until the president threatened to fire all Council members, hence the abrupt reopening – which was announced the same day the students were told to report back to college.
Perhaps, they should use their own reason more than the president’s directives. It should be clear that these academicians understand the situation at Chanco beyond politics. They are making decisions against their consciences simply to save their purses. They pretty well know that if they were making their decisions independent of any political influence, Chanco wouldn’t even have been closed in the first place. The impasse would have been cleared long ago and the lecturers would have returned to class.
But the danger with politicians running the university is that they employ their stubbornness and pride in matters that would be cleared without much ado, simply to show that they have power to do so. They always strive to consolidate their authority even in areas where such acts cannot be adored.
And now politics is being played by Council themselves. They are assimilating with the authority higher than them who tells them what to do and they have no courage to ask why they have to do it.
It is clear that they thought that after reopening the college irrespective of the fact that there were still some outstanding issues, they would mobilize the students to turn against their lecturers. Take this instance: a long, winding, redundant Press Release which Council released in the mainstream media was distributed to Chanco students so that they should “scrutinize it”. Realities on the ground had been twisted to such an extent that the students discovered it and chose to reject the content of the Press Release.
And later, the principal of Chanco who also happens to be a member of the University Council by virtue of his position, urged the students to ‘revolt’ against their teachers when he told them that kufa saferana (Everyman for himself and God for us all). The students rightly construed their principal’s intention and snubbed him. They didn’t go against their lecturers; they just didn’t see any reason to.
Council is desperate for ideas. It seems they have exhausted all the options they had to continue towing the presidential line. But, if they are to remain in their positions, they have to continue doing what they hate – towing the presidential line. But Malawians are eagerly hoping for the day these academicians will rise above the occasion and defy the presidential order and tell the Chanco four to go back to class. Yet, such types of people are hard to find in a society that is ruled by a politician.
And in another exhibition of desperation, Council asked to meet Chanco students’ representatives so that they should discuss a number of issues, perhaps, even those raised in the petition which the students presented to the University Office last Monday. In the petition, the students who had been holding a vigil at the University Office since last Monday only to be blocked three days later, said they would continue doing so until the day they would fully return to class.
The students snubbed Council on the proposed meeting. Perhaps, they were just very right; why would Council choose to involve the students in the discussion without the lecturers who are the principal parties in the whole impasse? It is obvious that, like they had attempted before, Council wanted to bulldoze the students into turning against their lecturers. Otherwise, it is hard to guess what would come out of Council’s meeting with the students which would lead to the resumption of classes at the college.
Heroism is a notion most politicians seldom want to be accorded to others other than themselves. If truth be told, Mutharika doesn’t want Kapasula and company to remain at Chanco because after everything is said and done, they will be construed as the ultimate heroes. This was evident in his 4 June speech where he used phrases like “false pursuit of heroism”.
Yet, while trying to unmake heroes out of the four Chanco lecturers, Mutharika is becoming more infamous. Again, this is where it becomes hard to define his priorities. In any case, they must be very peculiar priorities.
We all know that even if the president is to make a directive that learning should resume at Chanco, he can use the same Council he is using to make sure learning stalls. In this regard, he shouldn’t be afraid of losing morale after having finally “given in”. It will be a bold decision that will finally settle the dust that continues rising at the Zomba-based college.
Otherwise, the kind of political leadership he is employing in the impasse isn’t the best. He can only speak a few words and things will return to normalcy and millions of kwacha will be saved from going down the drain. He must understand that leadership, as Lance Secretan said, is not a formula or a program but rather a human activity that comes from the heart and considers the hearts of others.
He should consider the plight of the students who are at the receiving end of the impasse; he should prioritise those poor parents in the remote areas who are spending the last penny they had on their sons and daughters who have not been to class fully since February. He should take into account numerous voices of reason that have pleaded with him to normalize things at Chanco.
Mutharika should do some soul searching and understand that the greatest of all leaders is he who is willing to follow his people. He holds the key to the resumption of normal teaching and learning at Chanco, and if he himself doesn’t do anything, all other parties involved might just be struggling in vain.
The Trouble of Righting a President's Wrongs
Being in a position where you answer directly to a state president isn’t a simple thing. Things should be more delicate if the president is as unpredictable as Bingu wa Mutharika; and almost unimaginable if the president is Mutharika himself.
The real trouble lies in the fact that Mutharika cannot only sack at will; he also has a peculiar choice of words when it comes to counterattacking his critics. He often defies conventional presumptions of how a leader would react in a certain instance.
If you have to survive in presidential spokesperson Hetherwick Ntaba’s position, you probably must study something beyond syntax and literature. Ntaba interprets Mutharika’s statements in very interesting ways.
He is a medical doctor by profession, but he seems to have some expertise when it comes to interpreting straightforward statements where no ambiguity can be traced. He can observe figures of speech in anything the president says, and strives as much as possible to interpret Mutharika’s statements beyond that which is the actual meaning.
The spokesperson always has a hard task on his hands. His job is one which only a few can manage. The man he defends is never short of controversies. That is where the trouble lies. Ntaba has one simple – or difficult – guarantee on his desk: if he has to be assured of getting his cheque at the end of the month, he must always listen to the speeches Mutharika delivers and the following criticisms. Then he has to quickly think of a way to defend the president.
But, sometimes the way Ntaba ‘clarifies’ Mutharika’s speeches leaves a lot to be desired. If he employs poetic or syntactic tenets in interpreting the speeches, then he must be doing himself and the president a great deal of injustice. We all know that Mutharika isn’t such a public orator who can enjoy the use of figures of speech in an emotionally-charged counterattack.
Yet, Ntaba always has a way of observing something different in what the president says. Take the way he defended the president after Mutharika declared that if the Civil Society leaders wanted war with him, they should set a day when the war should begin.
“Now, therefore, if you don’t want dialogue, tell me any day we can go to war, if that’s what you want,” said the president.
As expected, Ntaba had to do his job. According to the spokesperson, the president
did not mean the actual fighting of guns and blades, but the fight against poverty, disease and the like. So, the president was telling the Civil Society to set a day when he and them should fight poverty and disease because he has been “patient for so long”.
One wonders if the president himself smiled upon hearing his spokesperson put words in his mouth and twist the core of his threats. Of course, it is clear that they both understand that the threat was not necessarily going to poverty and disease, but to Civil Society leaders. But, how they reach a mutual understanding on the peculiar interpretation is hard to suspect.
There wasn’t any ambiguity in Mutharika’s war threats and people are wondering why Ntaba believes we can just fold our arms and comfortably take him seriously on his interpretation. Have we suddenly become so daft that we fail to fathom the very basic statements the president makes?
There are better ways of righting the president’s wrongs than Ntaba’s prevalent ‘clarifications’ which lost their salt long ago. Like all of us, Mutharika is human too, and is supposed to err. He is not some god who should be immune to vulnerability. And the best way of righting a wrong that has been made is by acknowledging it and apologise.
But, it appears, just as Mutharika himself doesn’t have the word apology in his vocabulary, Ntaba too doesn’t believe the president can ever be wrong. It might be the president himself who tells his spokesperson not to ‘give in’ but try his utmost to make sure his boss always appears right. That is where the trouble with righting a president’s wrongs comes in, again.
Well, speaking for a president isn’t a simple thing, and it is a job that shouldn’t be poorly done. And, defending a president like Mutharika certainly demands a lot of personal sacrifice where you have to lay aside your own principles and betray your own conscience times without number. This is exactly what Ntaba is doing. He has killed in himself the noble politician he was when he was in the Malawi Congress Party simply to tow the presidential line; to save his purse.
The real trouble lies in the fact that Mutharika cannot only sack at will; he also has a peculiar choice of words when it comes to counterattacking his critics. He often defies conventional presumptions of how a leader would react in a certain instance.
If you have to survive in presidential spokesperson Hetherwick Ntaba’s position, you probably must study something beyond syntax and literature. Ntaba interprets Mutharika’s statements in very interesting ways.
He is a medical doctor by profession, but he seems to have some expertise when it comes to interpreting straightforward statements where no ambiguity can be traced. He can observe figures of speech in anything the president says, and strives as much as possible to interpret Mutharika’s statements beyond that which is the actual meaning.
The spokesperson always has a hard task on his hands. His job is one which only a few can manage. The man he defends is never short of controversies. That is where the trouble lies. Ntaba has one simple – or difficult – guarantee on his desk: if he has to be assured of getting his cheque at the end of the month, he must always listen to the speeches Mutharika delivers and the following criticisms. Then he has to quickly think of a way to defend the president.
But, sometimes the way Ntaba ‘clarifies’ Mutharika’s speeches leaves a lot to be desired. If he employs poetic or syntactic tenets in interpreting the speeches, then he must be doing himself and the president a great deal of injustice. We all know that Mutharika isn’t such a public orator who can enjoy the use of figures of speech in an emotionally-charged counterattack.
Yet, Ntaba always has a way of observing something different in what the president says. Take the way he defended the president after Mutharika declared that if the Civil Society leaders wanted war with him, they should set a day when the war should begin.
“Now, therefore, if you don’t want dialogue, tell me any day we can go to war, if that’s what you want,” said the president.
As expected, Ntaba had to do his job. According to the spokesperson, the president
did not mean the actual fighting of guns and blades, but the fight against poverty, disease and the like. So, the president was telling the Civil Society to set a day when he and them should fight poverty and disease because he has been “patient for so long”.
One wonders if the president himself smiled upon hearing his spokesperson put words in his mouth and twist the core of his threats. Of course, it is clear that they both understand that the threat was not necessarily going to poverty and disease, but to Civil Society leaders. But, how they reach a mutual understanding on the peculiar interpretation is hard to suspect.
There wasn’t any ambiguity in Mutharika’s war threats and people are wondering why Ntaba believes we can just fold our arms and comfortably take him seriously on his interpretation. Have we suddenly become so daft that we fail to fathom the very basic statements the president makes?
There are better ways of righting the president’s wrongs than Ntaba’s prevalent ‘clarifications’ which lost their salt long ago. Like all of us, Mutharika is human too, and is supposed to err. He is not some god who should be immune to vulnerability. And the best way of righting a wrong that has been made is by acknowledging it and apologise.
But, it appears, just as Mutharika himself doesn’t have the word apology in his vocabulary, Ntaba too doesn’t believe the president can ever be wrong. It might be the president himself who tells his spokesperson not to ‘give in’ but try his utmost to make sure his boss always appears right. That is where the trouble with righting a president’s wrongs comes in, again.
Well, speaking for a president isn’t a simple thing, and it is a job that shouldn’t be poorly done. And, defending a president like Mutharika certainly demands a lot of personal sacrifice where you have to lay aside your own principles and betray your own conscience times without number. This is exactly what Ntaba is doing. He has killed in himself the noble politician he was when he was in the Malawi Congress Party simply to tow the presidential line; to save his purse.
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